Winners of the Master’s Award in Asian Studies 2014

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The first Master’s Award in Asian Studies received 14 excellent submissions from Finland. We were very happy to see the high level and broad variety of Asia related research in Finland. All submissions went through rigorous academic review and the Master’s Award Jury, composed of members of the Asia Network Board, finally decided to give the Master’s Award to two outstanding thesis. The prizes (á 1000€) were handed at the Asian Studies Days 2014 at the University of Tampere.

The winners of the Master’s Award  in Asian Studies 2014 are:

Kaisa Niemi, University of Oulu

Topic: Changing Minds, Changing Hats: Construction and Expression of Akeu Ethnic Identity in Thailand and Myanmar.

(abstract to be added soon)

Kaisa Niemi presenting her MA thesis at the Asian Studies Days 2014.
Kaisa Niemi presenting her MA thesis at the Asian Studies Days 2014.

 

and

 

Tikli Loivaranta, University of Turku

Topic: Effects of scalar configurations on participation. A case of a carbon offsetting afforestation/reforestation project in Himachal Pradesh, India.

Loivaranta’s master’s thesis examines the processes of local communities’ participation in a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) afforestation/reforestation (A/R) project in Himachal Pradesh, North India. The CDM is one of the carbon offsetting mechanisms under the Kyoto Protocol, and the Himachal Pradesh Reforestation project aims to sequester carbon by planting trees on degraded lands in Himachal Pradesh. The focus of the study is on participation of the local communities, which entails involving local stakeholders in decisions and processes that might affect them. However, studying the CDM requires an approach that acknowledges the multi-level and multi-centric governance processes of the project, with various connections, restrictions and relationships within and between scales, as the mechanism involves processes in all scalar levels from the local to the global level. The results indicate that connectivity, or lack thereof, between all of these scalar levels largely determines the possibilities of informed, genuine and active participation.

 

 

Finnish University Network for Asian Studies