The DevGRG offers an annual prize for the most promising dissertation concerning ‘Development Geographies’. The prize is non-monetary, but students will have the opportunity to develop their dissertation into a 1,000-word blog post which we will publish on our website.
The prize is open to any student taking a first degree in geography. Students taking joint degrees are eligible to enter for the prize, provided that at least half their course is in geography. It is suggested that no Department of Geography submits more than one dissertation for this prize. Dissertations will be evaluated by three members of the DevGRG Committee.
Dissertations, along with a copy of the dissertation instructions/guidelines given to students, should be sent by email as a PDF and should include “DevGRG UG dissertation submission” as the email subject. Please also include student details, and who to contact to announce the winner.
Submissions should be sent to:
j.t.lingham@sheffield.ac.uk (Jayanthi Lingham, Dissertations Officer, DevGRG)
Deadline for Submissions : TBC
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Congratulations to our 2024 Undergraduate Dissertation Prize Winners: Jule Shad, University of Southampton & Nicolas Mouros, University of Bristol! Once again, the submission standard for this year’s entries was very high – well done to all entrants for doing such impressive work.
Jule Shad, University of Southampton. Dissertation title: “National development at a human cost: examining the treatment of Nepalese migrant workers in Qatar in preparation for the 2022 FIFA world cup”.
National development at a human cost is an excellent piece of work that investigates South-South migration as a question of development. It takes a rights-based approach to the experience of Nepalese migrant workers in the leadup to the 2022 World Football Cup in Qatar, which complements existing policy and finance focusses on South-South migration. The research is commendable in its effort to seek out voices of (families of) Nepalese migrant workers who have been affected by or engaged in migrant labour in Qatar. The findings are highly relevant for the discipline of Development Geographies, and revert the dominant gaze that tends to focus on South-North migration.
Nicolas Mouros, University of Bristol. Dissertation title: “Decomonisation of water in divided Cyprus”.
Decommonisation of water in divided Cyprus is a highly original dissertation that challenges the neoliberal, depoliticised view of water shortage as a physical phenomenon, and instead locates it within development-as-growth processes of appropriation, extraction and privatisation in divided Cyprus. The research is grounded in a sophisticated analytical framework that coalesces relevant concepts and theoretical approaches to hydraulic patronage, commoning and environmental peacebuilding. The dissertation used highly innovative methods, combining creative, map-making and participatory approaches. Their analysis produced interesting insights for water governance and peacebuilding in Cyprus, grounded in the explicitly acknowledged normative aspect and transformational goal of the research.
If you’re reading this while writing and planning for your dissertation, I wish you the best of luck! Don’t worry if you’re finding it tough – I certainly did! Trust your ideas, do lots of reading, and listen to your supervisor – If you do this you will likely find, as I did, your dissertation to be by far the most rewarding part of your degree.
Previous Winners:
- 1995: Ming-Lee Lim (Oxford) ‘Kotadesasi Zones: A New Hypothesis on Megalopisation in Asia: A Case Study of Beijing, China’
- 1996: Rachel Jenkings (University of the West of England) ‘What role does female participation play in the effectiveness of community development? A Case study of the Christian Community Services Department in the Machakos Diocese of the Church of the Province of Kenya’
- 1997: Rebecca Dell (Birmingham) ‘Visions of Africa: Pictoral Images in Oxfam Publications’
- 1998: Haleh Darwazeh (UCL) ‘Micro-Credit Enterprises and Women’s Empowerment’
- 1999: Simon Hayden (Oxford) ‘Fair Trade Coffee as a Strategy for Human Development in Rural Peru’
- 2000: Alice Pettigrew (Durham) ‘Shaka to Shakespeare: An Examination of the Relationship between Education and Identity in Twentieth Century KwaZulu-Natal’.
- 2001: Samantha Shepherd (UWE) ‘The Attitudes of Indigenous People to Their Environment: A Study of the Bajau Community in Tukangbesi Archipelago, Indonesia’.
- 2002: Emilie Filou (Oxford) ‘Camels, Marabouts and Docs: Health Care Provision for Tuaregs in Northern Niger’.
- 2003: Sarah Rothmell (Birmingham) ‘The Connectivitea of Britain and Sri Lanka’.
- 2004: Edward Poulter (Edinburgh) ‘Challenging the Epidemiological Transition: An Investigation into the Influence of Urban Slum Environments on health with Kibera Slum, Nairobi’.
- 2005: Harriet White (Edinburgh) ‘Governance and performance: A case study of identity construction among two Karen groups’. [List of shortlisted dissertations]
- 2006: Siobhan Luikham (UCL) ‘Why don’t the kids go to school? A comparative study of the constraints on achievement of free compulsory universal basic education (fCUBE) in Ghana from a household perspective’. [List of shortlisted dissertations]
- 2007: Ruth Pearse (The University of Edinburgh) ‘The gender politics of credit control: Social appropriation of the mobile phone in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania’
- 2008: David Parry (Queen Mary UoL) ‘Motivation as assemblage: sustainable agriculture in rural Mexico’.
- 2009: Richard Mallett (UCL) ”It’s like one leg is in the village, one leg is here’: Transition, Connection and (Uncertain?) Aspirations among Urban Internally Displaced Persons in Kampala, Uganda
- 2010: Thomas Grant (Exeter) ‘Making way for Arecelor Mittal’.
- 2011: James Mak (LSE) ‘Spaces in the (Re-) construction of Post-conflict Cambodia.’
- 2013: Sally Millett (Durham) ‘Representing and Encountering Tanzania: Locating Agency in the Discursive Formation of Nature and Poverty in Western ‘Voluntourism’ Narratives’
- 2014: Christopher Blois-Brooke (Durham) ‘Postcolonial destabilisation of expert knowledge through Theatre for Development? A spatial analysis in (and away from) Lusaka, Zambia.’
- 2015: Matita Afoakwa (UCL) ‘Self, Status and Survival: The experience of return migration of professionals to Accra, Ghana’.”
- 2016: Daphne Lee (UCL) ‘Ageing environmental relationships in Singapore.’
- 2017: Clara Ida Bartram Gurresø (Edinburgh) ‘Why do People Volunteer? A Critical Study into the Motivations of International Volunteers.’
- 2018: Miles Harrison (UCL) ‘Empowering the poor?’ The effects of formalising informal settlements in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.’
- 2019: Lucy Petty (Newcastle) ‘Responsible Volunteering: A Viable Solution? A Postcolonial Reading of International Volunteering in Jambiani, Zanzibar.’
- 2020: Rai Saad Khan (Oxford) ‘Lahore’s Performative Statehoods: a study of the form and practices of statehood of the Walled City of Lahore Authority in Pakistan’
- 2022: Sam Street (UCL) ‘Navigating the maelstrom: The conjunctural geographies of Nigerian online freelancers’
The information provided will be treated in the strictest confidence. Relevant data, including name, contact details, topic and affiliation, will be processed under legitimate interest for the purposes of this dissertation prize only. Names and affiliations of prize winners will be made public on our website and will be kept on record as part of the Society’s historical archive. More information on our privacy policy can be found on our website.
