Outcome 2025 PolGRG Undergraduate Dissertation Prize
The panel of the 2025 PolGRG Undergraduate Dissertation Prize (Alexander Manby, Anil, Sindhwani, Öznur Yardımcı, Semra Akay, Shawn Bodden) is delighted to announce the winning entry.
The prize received entries from 15 UK universities (Aberystwyth, Birmingham, Cambridge, Cardiff, Dundee, Durham, Exeter, King’s College London, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Oxford, Queen Mary, University College London, York), all of which were of an exceptionally high standard. Ranging in their regional focus well beyond the UK’s geographical borders, including the Basque Country (Spain/France), Cyprus, Mexico, Hong Kong, Singapore, and beyond, these dissertations explore a variety of political geography approaches, from foreign policy and discourse to climate policy, migration, borders, identity, and citizenship.
The Winner:
Third space’ or ‘territorial trap’: examining citizenship and conscription through National Service in Singapore
By Caleb Tan (University College London)
This ambitious piece examines the intersection of transnationalism, citizenship, and conscription, with a focus on the experiences of transnational migrants in Singapore’s National Service. Caleb engages directly with key theoretical debates, most notably by juxtaposing Bhabha’s notion of the “third space” with Agnew’s concept of the “territorial trap.” Employing semi-structured interviews with both former and active service members, alongside discourse analysis of YouTube videos in which service members share their experiences, Caleb’s research offers a systematic and multi-layered analysis. His work makes valuable contributions to geographical scholarship on migration, national identity, and military geographies. Overall, the panel was particularly impressed by the coherence, innovative engagement with theory, and the strong overall structure, all of which enhanced the impact of this outstanding dissertation.
Highly Commended:
Understanding the role of the river Bidasoa border in the Basque Country (Spain/France)
Olatz Bulson-Roman (Cambridge University)
Olatz’s work is highly original and ambitious, demonstrating how the river challenges the traditional state-centric, securitised logics of the border. By arguing that rivers are not passive lines on a map, but areas with their own active agency, she makes a compelling case. Employing more-than-representational methods including walking interviews, emotional cartography, and autoethnography, her work powerfully captures the bodily and sensory relationships people have with the river. She shows an impressive reflexive awareness of her positionality as a researcher with local ties and a multilingual background.
Negotiating the Flux of a ‘Frozen’ Conflict: The Impact of Everyday Peace-Making on Youth Identities in Cyprus
Ethan Chandler (Oxford University)
This superbly written work examines how young people in Cyprus renegotiate identities shaped by education and memory through everyday peace practices. Using semi-structured interviews and observations, Ethan analyses how youth transform conflict narratives through their small-scale interactions in daily life, participation in peace programmes, and relationships with other communities.
We warmly congratulate these students and look forward to next year’s nominations in 2026!