Each year, the Examiners for the MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies have the discretion to award a prize for the best thesis submitted by one of the students on the course.

We are delighted to announce that this year’s prize has been awarded to Anna Wherry for her thesis on 'On the Margins of Forced Migration: Development and Displacement in a "First World" City', which was written under the supervision of Professor Gil Loescher.

The Examiners felt this was excellent work which challenges the framing of forced migration in terms of an apolitical humanitarian/existential threat, the links to the international governance of the humanitarian regime and thus the confinement of the concept of forced migration to the global south and conditions of mass displacement.

The thesis argues that other modes of displacement take place in other locations, particularly in 'developed' nations, but are discounted because they do not fit this humanitarian logic.

Instead, the thesis argues that we should interpret forced migration in terms of the logic of power and space, and the unequal ability of marginal groups to shape space. Processes of displacement in 'developed' nations - and the necessity of re-imagining the existing humanitarian logic defining the limits of forced migration - are demonstrated in the context of urban renewal in East London..

All students on the MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies who receive a distinction in their theses are encouraged to revise their work for publication in the RSC Working Paper Series. This year, five candidates in all have been invited to publish.