Royal Historical Society presents Cardiff student with prestigious scholarship

A Cardiff born Pakistani historian has returned to university this September via a prestigious Royal Historical Society (RHS) Scholarship.

Ahsan Rashid who is 21, is a recipient of this year’s RHS Master’s Scholarship that seeks to address underrepresentation within History, enabling Black and Asian students to consider academic research in the discipline.

Ahsan graduated from Cardiff University earlier this year with a 1st class honours degree in History. He credits his maternal grandfather and uncle and the Japanese video game designer, Hideo Kojima as his inspiration for developing a love and enthusiasm for the past.

Ahsan explains, “Growing up Muslim in a post-9/11 world, my primary means of entertainment were video games, television, and movies. In the media, my only encounters with people who looked like me and/or shared my faith were often extremists/terroristic/fanatical villains or as Westernised ‘good guys’ who had earned their status by shedding anything ‘Eastern’ or foreign about themselves.

My grandfather and uncle introduced me to an alternative view of reality: one shaped by our own history—and that of all colonised peoples—of subjugation and colonialism, as well as our continued exploitation under capitalism and Western neocolonial violence.”

Ahsan was also a huge fan of the Metal Gear Solid series of games created by Hideo Kojima which then sparked an enthusiasm to learn more about the in the Cold War era.

“It was a period defined by massive anticolonial movements, and one I heard mentioned constantly when learning about Western interference growing up. In the Metal Gear Solid series, I found a home where it was not people who looked like me, but rather capital and superpowers themselves that were the villains.”

Ahsan is thrilled to be back at university to study History at master’s level and is looking forward to honing a particular specialisation in colonial gender history.

“I am fascinated by how Empire constructs ideas of femininity and masculinity, and how gender is used in the policing of subjects, and their mobilisation into manual/sexual labour, military service etc. I am also interested in these gendered constructs' afterlife and influence on postcolonial societies, specifically the memory of sexual violence's role in generating gendered postcolonial nationalisms.”

Dr Helena Lopes, who taught Ahsan during his undergraduate degree and supervised his dissertation said, “Ahsan’s academic engagement, intellectual sophistication, enthusiasm to debate and ability to exchange ideas with his peers was consistently excellent. It is great to see his work recognised by this competitive funding scheme of the RHS.”