Social and Cultural Geography Research Group

The SCGRG offers an annual prize of £100 for the best Undergraduate Dissertation in Social and Cultural Geography and £50 for the Runner-Up.   Both prize-winners also receive a year’s personal subscription to the journal Social & Cultural Geography published by Taylor & Francis.  Please see the mission statement for our definition of what is considered social and cultural geography.

Nominated dissertations should be: an outstanding theoretical and/or empirical piece of work; usually over 10,000 words in length; submitted for formal assessment in the preceding academic year to a UK Higher Education Institution for a BA/BSc level degree programme in geography; and written in English.  We are looking to reward both excellent scholarship and innovation in the study of social and cultural geography.  Please note that a department may not submit more than one entry and nominated dissertations should not be submitted for consideration for any other RGS prizes.

Nominations are requested from the Head of Department or Dissertation Convenor by the Friday 13th July 2012.  All dissertations should be submitted as a single pdf file of less than 25MB in size (please compress images before saving as a pdf), along with a copy of the appropriate departmental dissertation regulations and a post-September contact address for the student.  Submissions should be emailed to dissertationprize@scgrg.org.  For further queries about the SCGRG Undergraduate Dissertation Prize, please contact Emma Roe.

2011 Awards

We are delighted to announce the award winners for 2011. Jessica Potts, University of Durham, is the winner for her dissertation entitled “We are not here, we are not there”: Young Refugees’ and Asylum Seeker’s Negotiations of Identity and Belonging‘ (412 kB pdf). The committee praised the study for its high level of theoretical engagement, its excellent empirical analysis and its methodological innovation. The committee felt it made a significant and original contribution to academic debates on identity and belonging in social and cultural geography.

Mary McLaren, University of Exeter, was highly commended for her dissertation entitled ‘Constructing distant geographies of care: the example of Fairtrade in Horsham‘ (3.0MB pdf). The Committee thought it was an impressive and sophisticated study, written in an eloquent and clear style, engaging with challenging issues and debates. It deftly weaved existing literature with original research findings. The findings were based on high quality, in-depth multi-method qualitative research. The Committee felt that the research was both engaging and innovative and nicely developed ideas within the existing cultural geography literature on fair trade.

2010 Awards

We are delighted to announce the award winners for 2010.  Kaleigh Jones, University of Oxford, is the winner for her dissertation entitled Embodying Mobile Cultures: a case study of Capoeira (abstract and images, 826.2 kB pdf).  The committee praised the design of the study for its considerable flair and sophistication, and the insightful, innovative and evocative write-up.  The study was an extremely theoretically engaged study, based upon fieldwork in the UK and Brazil and gave a rich empirical analysis.  The committee felt it made a genuine contribution to academic geography in social and cultural geography.

Emma Bonny, University of Nottingham, was highly commended for her dissertation entitled The landscape and culture of allotments: a study in Hornchurch, Essex (full dissertation, 5.5 MB pdf).  The committee were impressed with how deftly she weaved existing literature with original research findings. The findings were based on high quality, in-depth multi-method qualitative research. The discussion of the research was both engaging, innovative and developed ideas within existing cultural geography literature on allotments.