The Political Geography Research Group is pleased to announce the results of our annual undergraduate dissertation prize. We received thirteen very strong entries from across the UK and across the breadth of the sub-discipline – from electoral geography to political ecology; from geopolitics to historical geography.
This year, since the competition was so strong, we have awarded two prize winners and two highly commended entries. It was an exceptionally difficult decision, and the standard was very high indeed. Every dissertation that was submitted showed high levels of flair, insight and a strong grasp of both theory and empirics. They all told engaging stories and uncovered important knowledges.
We wish our winners and commended entries – as well as their supervisors and departments – many congratulations for their achievements!
The winners
Lilly Donnelly’s (UCL) dissertation, Interpreting the revitalization of the Los Angeles River through the lens of urban ecological citizenship, is a nuanced and fine-grained engagement with literatures around political ecology, investigating experiences of, and struggles around, the regeneration of the Los Angeles river. In the study, she guides the reader through the diverse experiences of residents to develop a notion of “differentiated ecological citizenship” which brings issues of race and class into sharper focus. We found her analytical strength was far beyond what is expected of even first class undergraduate dissertations, critically intervening in complex academic debates around citizenship and always taking a careful and measured approach to the empirical material through which she weaves her arguments.
Christopher Baird (Oxford) is the second prize winner for his thesis titled Encounters in the ‘Jungle’: an investigation of the ethical spaces of the Calais refugee camp. Drawing critically on an impressive range of theoretical and conceptual tools, this dissertation brings together debates around Agamben and camps, encounters of difference, and the ambiguous ethics of fieldwork, to produce a deeply insightful study of an urgent and topical issue. Christopher’s cross-fertilisation of diverse fields of study and sub-disciplinary concepts is done with exceptional nuance and originality to produce an outstanding piece of critical political geography.
Highly commended entries
Viktoria Noka (Glasgow) provided us with a fascinating and deeply-researched study of anti-nuclear activism in Germany for her dissertation entitled The ‘Wendland Movement’: The productive geographies of solidarity and politics in the anti-nuclear energy movement in Wendland, Germany. Her detailed archival study of the movement, combined with contemporary interviews with activists, told a powerful story of conflict, collective action and locally-embedded political cultures spanning decades. Of particular interest was a section concerning the delicate and complex processes and politics of translating between languages, often overlooked by scholars in published work.
Sara Missaghian-Schirazi’s (Edinburgh) dissertation, entitled Transforming the relationship between state and society through flood risk management: Insights from the Faybank Estate Flood Resilience Community Pathfinder, brought to life the complex entanglements of community agency and state power through the case study of a community-based flood risk management programme in England. Drawing on a strong array of documentary and interview material, Sara was able to tell a powerful story of resilience, recuperation and negotiation that speaks to a number of contemporary questions in political ecology and political geographies of the state.