Congratulations to Karen Hargrave, who has been awarded the 2013-14 MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies best thesis prize.

Karen’s thesis on ‘Repatriation through a trust-based lens: Burma and beyond’ was written under the supervision of Dr Matthew Gibney.

Karen investigated the notion of ‘trust’ as an important component of repatriation and deftly combined several research angles: repatriation, a philosophical exploration of trust, and an analysis of the refugee situation on the Thai-Burma border. Her thesis offered an original, sophisticated argument and rigorous, in-depth analysis, showing a sound grasp both of Burma’s politics and the dynamics of refugee assistance.  It had the potential to make an important and necessary contribution to discussions about repatriation and the examiners have encouraged Karen to revise the work for publication as an RSC Working Paper. 

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, nine candidates in all have been invited to publish.