{"id":124876,"date":"2021-03-30T16:05:30","date_gmt":"2021-03-30T14:05:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=124876"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:25:31","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:25:31","slug":"moral-panic-is-the-main-theme-of-abdessamad-bouabids-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2021\/03\/30\/moral-panic-is-the-main-theme-of-abdessamad-bouabids-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Moral panic is the main theme of Abdessamad Bouabid\u2019s research"},"content":{"rendered":"

Abdessamad Bouabid found his calling in criminology. As Moroccan and Dutch citizen, his research on the stigmatisation of Moroccans in the Netherlands is interwoven with his life. The book\u00a0Folk Devils and Moral Panics<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by Stanley Cohen inspired him during his scientific career and also runs as the main theme through his own book\u00a0De Marokkanenpaniek<\/em><\/a> (The Moroccan Panic).<\/p>\n

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Criminologist Abdessamad Bouabid (36) grew up in a traditional Moroccan family in Utrecht. At home he experienced being Moroccan as positive, but on the street and on television he saw the downside of his dual nationality. \u201cMoroccans in the Netherlands are associated with criminality, nuisance and radicalisation. How is it that when I walk around a supermarket, security end up in the same aisle as me four times? This raises questions.\u201d Questions that he struggled with as a teenager and eventually found the answers to in criminology.<\/p>\n\t

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Abdessamad\u00a0Bouabid is assistant professor at the Erasmus School of Law. He conducts research into the stigma of Moroccans in the Netherlands and the impact of this on Moroccans themselves. He also teaches criminology students. His dissertation has been published as a book:\u00a0De Marokkanenpaniek<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\t<\/div>\n

Following two unsuccessful degree studies, Bouabid decided to study something that really interested him. Without any plans for the future. After searching on the internet he ended up with psychology, for which he needed to take a maths test before being admitted. \u201cThey sent some test papers and I thought: shit, this is just maths. Let\u2019s not bother.\u201d Then he read about Criminology and he was certain immediately: this is it. He passed the mandatory SPSS course by the skin of his teeth.<\/p>\n

New is scary<\/h2>

Bouabid started reading criminological literature during his study. The book\u00a0<\/span>Folk Devils and Moral Panics<\/em>\u00a0<\/i><\/span>by Stanley Cohen made a real impression. Cohen describes 1960s England, in which the British culture of gentility, prudishness and order were confronted by a new youth culture. British adults couldn\u2019t stand those young people with long hair and free sexual morals. A minor disagreement between sections of the population was made into a major problem by the media. Politicians also intervened in the most minor of incidents to make clear that debauchery, rebellion and hedonism had no place England. According to Cohen, the overreaction of the British was a result of their concerns about losing their own culture.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bouabid read the book by accident when he was searching for a thesis topic and wondered whether the response of British adults was similar to the response to Muslims and Moroccans in the Netherlands. \u201cIf a Moroccan commits a criminal act, the papers also write about other crimes previously committed by Moroccans. They throw everything at it to show that the problem of Moroccans in the Netherlands is a big one.\u201d Bouabid wanted to understand the negative responses to Muslims and Moroccans, so the book\u00a0<\/span>Folk Devils and Moral Panics<\/em>\u00a0<\/i><\/span>formed the starting point for his thesis about the social responses to Muslims in the Netherlands.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\t

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