Nominations for the 2025 Master’s Dissertation Prize are now open! Deadline: 30 November 2025.
The Association of Southeast Asian Studies is pleased to invite nominations for the ASEAS Master’s Dissertation Prize 2025, which recognises outstanding humanities and social science research on Southeast Asia from postgraduate students across the world.
We invite heads of departments and dissertation supervisors to nominate a dissertation in any area of humanities or social sciences, which focuses on Southeast Asia.
Students may also request a nomination form, however the form must be completed and submitted by their dissertation supervisor/marker.
The dissertation should be the best in the subject area (of distinction or first-class quality), focus on a topic relating to Southeast Asia whether ancient or modern, make an original contribution to research debates, and be of excellent quality.
Only dissertations submitted for degrees awarded in the academic year 2024-25 may be submitted. The successful applicant will be notified in January 2026.
The author of the winning dissertation will receive £150, a year’s membership of ASEAS, and the opportunity to write a blog piece on their research to be published on the ASEAS website and promoted across our social media channels.
Eligibility
- Dissertations must have been submitted as part of a taught postgraduate degree (MA/MSc/MPhil; unfortunately undergraduate dissertations are ineligible for this scheme) in the 2024/2025 academic year.
- Dissertations must clearly relate to the Southeast Asia region.
- Dissertations are to address any aspects of Southeast Asian human society and culture or social scientific understanding of Southeast Asian affairs.
- Only dissertations achieving a distinction / first class or equivalent internal grade will be considered for the prize.
- Students may also request a nomination form, however the form must be completed and submitted by their dissertation supervisor/marker.
Submission Guidelines
To apply please submit a completed nomination form, a 300 word abstract and a 3,000 word extract from the dissertation to awards@southeastasianstudies.org with the subject heading “ASEAS Master’s Dissertation Prize Nomination” by 30 November 2025.
To request a nomination form please email awards@southeastasianstudies.org. Nomination forms must be submitted by the nominating supervisor/examiner.
The deadline for nominations for the 2025 Dissertation Prize is 30 November 2025.
The successful applicant will be notified in January 2026.
Review process
Dissertations will be reviewed independently by a judging panel of academic faculty representing multiple disciplines specialising in the Southeast Asia region, and the criteria will include research quality, originality and academic contribution.
Dissertations will be fully anonymised so that any identifying information, including document author properties, is removed before being sent to the review panel.
Any queries about the prize should be sent to awards@southeastasianstudies.org
Previous Recipients
2024/2025
The 2024/2025 ASEAS Master’s Dissertation Prize was awarded to Vincen Gregory Yu. Vincen’s dissertation ‘Monolithic medicine: Unsettling vaccine hesitancy in COVID-era Philippines’, was submitted as part of their MA in Anthropology at the University of Sydney in 2024.
Vincen’s dissertation provides a much-needed departure from existing debates on vaccine hesitancy in the Philippines (and the larger Southeast Asian region), which have tended to ascribe hesitancy to misinformation, conspiracy theories, belief in traditional medical systems, and the public’s so-called ‘misunderstanding of science’. The significant contribution of this thesis lies in its explication of the role of power—in public health governance, and in people’s everyday encounters with the health system—in shaping ordinary citizens’ decisions to delay or reject vaccinations.
2023/2024
The 2023/2024 ASEAS Master’s Dissertation Prize was jointly awarded to Gilang Mahadika and Htet Lynn Oo.
Gilang Mahadika’s dissertation, ‘Gardening in the Plantation: Indigenous Agroforestry System of Smallholders for Balancing Commodity Needs, Subsistence, and Restoring Biodiversity in Borneo’ was submitted as part of their MA in Anthropology at the Department of Anthropology, Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM), Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Gilang’s thesis explores Indigenous gardening practices in Kalimantan (Borneo), as an alternative way to restore biodiversity following the massive expansion of oil palm monocultures.
Click here to read Gilang’s blog post on Gardening in the Anthropocene.
Htet Lynn Oo’s dissertation, ‘Dynamics of 21st Century Anti-Coup Resistance in Myanmar: The Triangle Model of Resistance in Myanmar’, was submitted as part of their MA in Peace and Conflict Studies in the Politics Department at the University of Manchester, UK. Htet’s MA dissertation puts forward a novel model to analyse resistance: the triangle of resistance, which connects nonviolent, armed and diaspora movements. Their analysis investigates the internal contradictions between these three poles and examines the process through which resistance has been institutionalised in Myanmar.
2022/2023
The 2022/2023 ASEAS Master’s Dissertation Prize recipient was Helsheila Julis Binti Juffri. Sheila’s dissertation, entitled ‘Temuan Ontology through Derian Worlding’, was submitted as part of her Master’s in Research , which she completed in the School of Media, Languages and Cultures at the University of Nottingham Malaysia in 2022.
Sheila’s thesis comprised a detailed ethnographic account of the indigenous Temuan’s complex relationship to durian in Peninsula Malaysia, exploring ontological themes as well as the material relations between durian, customary land and social relations.
2021/2022
The 2021/2022 ASEAS Master’s Dissertation Prize recipient was Amanda Muñoz Gamage. Amanda’s dissertation, entitled ‘Enacting FPAR in Human Rights Organizations: practices, challenges and tensions’, was submitted as part of her MSc in Human Rights, which she completed in the Department of Sociology at the London School of Economics in 2021.
Click here to read Amanda’s blog piece on Feminist Participatory Action Research.
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