Master's Thesis Award Ceremony

For the third time the focus area Migration and Societal Change is crowning the best migration related master’s theses from Utrecht University. This years submissions were from the previous academic year (2023-2024), and we are happy to have received seven submissions from three different faculties and still more departments from within the Utrecht University. The theses were judged by a multidisciplinary jury consisting of the four board members of the focus area and based on the criteria: content, novelty, clarity/structure, and methodology; moreover jury members could give extra points for extraordinary efforts, such as extenisve fieldwork for data collection.

To celebrate the three best theses and ultimately present the winner we invite all members of the focus area and all interested to join us for the award ceremony. The shortlisted candidates have all been informed about their nominations and will present their research during the event. Moreover, we will close the ceremony and the year with some drinks and snacks.

Katerina Spyridou from the Master’s program Global Criminology, at the Faculty of Law, Economics and Governance, wrote an excellent thesis about the lives and challenges of Unaccompanied Minor Refugees (UMRs) in Athens. She conducted great fieldwork in which she interviewed many UMRs to learn about their survival strategies. With her work she is challenging the notion of UMRs as weak, and at-risk individuals and rather unravels the inspriring ways in which UMRs retain agency and cope with the myriad of difficulties that they have to face in their daily lives.

Nam Chi Nguyen wrote a novel-like thesis on the migration trajectories, working experiences, and dreams of workers in the Vietnamese nail salon industry in the Netherlands. She wrote her thesis as part of the master’s program of Gender Studies at the Faculty of Humanities. Through an intersectional feminist perspective she documented the daily routines and interactions of Vietnamese nail salon workers. The thesis investigates capitalist contradictions that perpetuate marginalization while also providing avenues for agency, material accumulation, upward mobility, and resistance.

Finally, and as part of the LLM program in Public International Law, at the Faculty of Law, Economics and Governance, Huseyin Ali Kudret wrote an excellent thesis from a very personal perspective about the Safety and Health for LGBTIQ+ Asylum Seekers in Dutch Reception Centres. From a law perspective they analyse how the Netherlands meets, fulfils or neglects its international human rights obligations regarding the safety and health of LGBTIQ+ asylum seekers in reception centres. They ultimately make various suggestions about how the state could address their shortcomings and uphold their human rights obligations.

We are looking forward to seeing you at the event and to celebrate the extraordinary academic achievements of all three nominated candidates.