2024-2025 Award Winner - Lou Raisonnier
With a Bachelor’s from McGill University, where she studied political science, Islamic studies and Arabic, and a Master’s degree from Science Po Paris in International Security, with a concentration on intelligence and the Middle-East, Lou Raisonnier is now in the fourth year of her doctoral program at the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa. She was a visiting fellow at the Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics at Sciences Po Paris and is currently a member of the Network for Strategic Analysis, which focuses on issues of security and defense, and the Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Ottawa.
Her thesis is entitled Framing Female “Terrorism”: French Return-Related Legislations and Security Practices. Based on qualitative field research, Lou Raisonnier is examining the handling and legal shaping by French security and administrative institutions of the return of women involved with the Islamic State organization in the Iraqi-Syrian zone. Her project creates a dialogue between analyses of radicalization processes and public action (measures described as “de-radicalization”) based on preconceptions (women’s aversion to violence) and the practical dilemmas that orient how measures are implemented and adapted over time.
Lou Raisonnier has presented her research at several conferences: the ProMeTe conference at Sorbonne University, the ASN conference at the Harriman Institute at Columbia University (NYC), the SeSaMo conference at the University of Naples Federico II, and the ISA conference in San Francisco.