BISA 2025 prize winners announced
We're delighted to announce the winners of the 2025 BISA awards and prizes. Our annual awards recognise excellence and achievement through research and teaching in the field of International Studies, and are announced at our conference each year.
The winners are:
Distinguished Contribution Prize – Professor Peter Newell
Susan Strange Best Book Prize – Shirin M. Rai - Depletion: The Human Costs of Caring (Oxford University Press)
L.H.M. Ling Outstanding First Book Prize – Farhana Afrin Rahman - After the Exodus: Gender and Belonging in Bangladesh's Rohingya Refugee Camps (Cambridge University Press)
Michael Nicholson Thesis Prize – Natasja Rupesinghe - 'Community Responses to Jihadist Mobilisation in Central Mali.' (University of Oxford)
New Voices In Cultural Relations Prize -Zoha Siddiqui - Motherhood-Based Advocacy for Transitional Justice in Northern Ireland
Best Article in the Review of International Studies (RIS) Prize –Uygar Baspehlivan- Theorising the memescape: The spatial politics of Internet memes (RIS 2024, vol.50, issue 1, pp. 35 - 57).
Early Career Excellence in Teaching International Studies Prize – Joint winners: Alice Finden and Kavi Abraham
Distinguished Excellence in Teaching International Studies Prize – Erin Hannah
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Prize – Joint winners: Jessica Northey (Coventry University) and Andreja Zevnik, Toni Haastrup and Megan Tinsley (University of Manchester)
Working Group of the Year Prize – Critical Studies on Terrorism
Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group Early-Career Researcher Paper Prize - Asad Zaidi (visiting lecturer at University of Westminster)
Best PhD Thesis in Emotions in Politics and IR - Dr Anne-Marie Houde (University of Oxford) and Dr Uygar Baspehlivan (University of Bristol)
Read on to find out more about each winner, see some honorable mentions, and what the judges said. Keep an eye on our social media to hear about each of the winners.
Distinguished Contribution Prize - Professor Peter Newell
The Distinguished Contribution Prize recognises contribution to the promotion of excellence in the discipline of International Studies over a substantial period of time.
The panel believe that Peter is particularly deserving of this honour given the myriad of contributions he has made to advancing scholarship on environmental political economy, as well as leading policy/practice initiatives that seek to address the root causes of climate change.
Susan Strange Best Book Prize - Shirin M. Rai
The aim of this prize is to honour the work of Susan Strange, and to recognise outstanding current work being conducted in the discipline. This year’s prize was awarded to Shirin M. Rai for the book Depletion: The Human Costs of Caring (Oxford University Press).
The judging panel said:
"The book was seen by the panel as making an outstanding contribution to the discipline of International Studies. Rigorous, original, and urgent, the book embodies the highest possible scholarly standards within our field. It will shape understanding of the physical, mental, environmental and other costs of social reproduction, forcing recognition of the structures – of gender, race, class, and beyond – within which care work is done. We offer our huge congratulations to Professor Rai for writing a truly excellent book."
L.H.M. Ling Outstanding First Book Prize - Farhana Afrin Rahman
The aim of the L.H.M. Ling prize is to honour Lily's work and to recognise outstanding early-career research in the discipline. This year’s prize was awarded to Farhana Afrin Rahman for the book After the Exodus: Gender and Belonging in Bangladesh's Rohingya Refugee Camps (Cambridge University Press)
The judging panel said:
"This book addresses an exceptionally important topic and offers an in-depth case study of an understudied population. Rahman focuses on the lived experiences of Rohingya women refugees, who have fled Myanmar since 2017 and are living in refugee camps across the border in Bangladesh. She recounts the narratives of their lives, examining how they have learned to make a life in the camps and how gender relations and roles have been transformed after the exodus. The book’s contribution is significant for several reasons. First, the book brings the plight of stateless people to the forefront of its narrative. Second, the case study is difficult to access for researchers, yet the author not only gained access to the community but also succeeded in asking sensitive questions and uncovering difficult realities that deserve to be heard. The book is based on extensive fieldwork, with 14 months of feminist ethnographic research in the camps, and conversations with dozens and dozens of refugees living there. The reader gets a very good sense of what life is like in the camps for women refugees, and there are many very moving accounts of women’s experiences there. Through this, she is ‘gendering forced migration’ and giving a voice to the women refugees. She examines how women tried to produce a new sense of home in the camps, building new communities and trying to increase their belonging in the new place. She looks at how marriage practices changed in a situation in which women outnumbered men. She examines how the division of labour within the home was affected by the experience of being refugees in the camps, with no/few jobs for men but some opportunities for women, and she analyses the gendered effects of NGOs’ work in the camps. Rahman argues that the camps did not destroy pre-existing conceptions of masculinity and femininity, but also did not leave them unchanged, with women engaging in everyday resistance against oppression. Overall, the book offers a strong balance between theory and very rich empirical data, and makes a very meaningful contribution to better understanding the refugee experience, and especially that of women refugees."
Michael Nicholson Thesis Prize – Natasja Rupesinghe
The Michael Nicholson thesis jury agreed that this year’s award should go to Natasja Rupesinghe for Community Responses to Jihadist Mobilisation in Central Mali.
Of Natasja's dissertation the judges said:
"This is an outstanding thesis. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in difficult terrain, Rupesinghe presents a micro-analysis of how local communities engage with insurgents in civil wars, highlighting the importance of local grievances, political economies and the changing dynamics of war. As well as its rich empirical contribution and methodological rigour, the thesis develops an original framework of how communities respond to violence. It contributes important theoretical advancements to literatures on inter-ethnic and communal violence, community agency in civil wars, and the political economy of conflict. Taken together, this is an exceptionally impressive and well-rounded piece of work."
The judges also awarded honorable mentions to:
- Uygar Baspehlivan - Meme-ing Global Politics: Moving Encounters with Capital, Race, and the State
- Italo Brandimarte - Displacing War Experience: Military Technology and the More-than Human Politics of Empire
- Benjamin Rosher - Taking Back Control: Brexit, Northern Ireland, and the Damoclesian Border
On Uygar's thesis the panel said:
"This is a highly significant thesis. It makes a number of original interventions in the field throughout, with its most enduring impact likely to be on the idea of the 'memescape' as a site of political commentary, identification, and circulation. Theoretically sophisticated, historically informed, empirically rich, the thesis draws on an extraordinary bready of interdisciplinary literatures with deftness and precision. It further contributions to how we understand the contemporary politics of race, gender, class and nationhood across the different chapters."
On Italo's thesis the panel said:
"The thesis is superbly written and based on some fascinating research. The thesis makes a significant contribution to scholarship, in areas include war simulations, automated weapons and aerial bombardment. This is cohered through a sophisticated conceptual framework that emphasises the posthuman and moves away from experience-centred accounts of war and suffering. It also points to a wider social and historical context drawing on approaches informed by gender and postcolonialism. This makes for a really strong approach."
And on Benjamin's thesis the panel said:
"The thesis makes a major contribution to knowledge, investigating the effect of post-Brexit border changes on the lives of EEA+ citizens in Northern Ireland in ways which has wider relevance for understanding the relationship between borders and communities. The thesis develops the concept of the 'Damoclesian border' to explore the ways in which the contingency of borders and border practices interact with individuals' ontological security. this is an original and important innovation with considerable analytical power. Many theses make claims to significant contribution; this one actually does."
Best Article in the Review of International Studies (RIS) Prize – Uygar Baspehlivan
This Prize is awarded annually by the editorial advisory board of our journal Review of International Studies (RIS). It is awarded for the best article published in the previous year's volume of the journal. This year the board chose Uygar Baspehlivan’s Theorising the memescape: The spatial politics of Internet memes (RIS 2024, vol.50, issue 1, pp. 35 - 57).
The judges noted:
"The Committee especially enjoyed the paper because it takes an apparently trivial object of international politics seriously, and demonstrates its significant political effects. It does this through highly original theorisation, since many scholars might not have associated memes with spatial politics or with visual politics or narratives. The Committee found the theoretical approach original and highly relevant and appreciated that the author used two examples of resistant and reactionary use of memes, highlighting the contingent construction of the political."
The judges also gave an honorable mention to Toni Erskine for AI and the future of IR: Disentangling flesh-and-blood, institutional, and synthetic moral agency in world politics.
They noted:
"At a time when so much writing on AI generates more heat than light, this article makes a very valuable contribution in wrestling with the problem of attributing moral agency to synthetic actors, prompting a deep reflection on how agency is generally assigned within IR and formulating some important and useful distinctions in the process."
New Voices In Cultural Relations Prize - Zoha Siddiqui (Queens University Belfast)
This joint BISA and British Council prize is for a Master’s dissertation which provides new scholarly insight and/or offers a new policy direction that makes an original contribution to international relations.
The judges said:
"This is an impressive and original thesis on motherhood-based advocacy in Northern Ireland. Drawing on rich primary material, including oral histories, it offers a clear, theoretically informed, and methodologically attentive analysis. The thesis speaks with authority on transitional justice, highlighting important differences with other contexts. It builds a convincing argument, supported by strong evidence, and develops critical insights into the role of gender in conflict. The result is a clear, well-structured study that brings three significant original contributions to the field."
The judges also awarded Special Commendation to:
- Aurelie Crawford (Oxford Brookes University).
You can find out more about this prize and the winners in a separate news story.
Early Career Excellence in Teaching International Studies Prize - Alice Finden and Kavi Abraham (Durham University)
The aim of this annual award is to recognise those early-career academics, or teams of academics, who have contributed to the positive learning experience of students in International Studies.
The judging panel noted:
"The panel was particularly impressed at the trajectory of their work that drew a clear line from decolonisation aims to methods of assessment, as well as dissemination of best practice. This application really stood out for its rigour and thoughtfulness."
They also awarded an honorable mention to Valentina Amuso.
The judging panel noted:
"This was a very strong contender due to its original thematic focus that integrated IR with public policy, and applied different methods of assessment that showcased high levels of flexibility and inclusivity."
Distinguished Excellence in Teaching International Studies Prize - Erin Hannah
The aim of this annual award is to recognise established academics, or teams of academics, who have contributed to the positive learning experience of students in International Studies.
The judges said:
"The panel was moved by the significant evidence of how inspirational Dr. Hanna is as a teacher. With a diversity of assessment, and clear evidence of someone who has made a significance contribution to teaching over her career, this was a very powerful application that showcased Hanna’s success as a mentor, role-model and advisor."
Working Group of the Year – Critical Studies on Terrorism
Working groups are at the heart of BISA and directly contribute to the development of International Studies. All conveners are volunteers and hope this prize helps to recognise and celebrate their achievements.
The judges said of the Critical Studies on Terrorism Working Group:
The Working Group received four very good nominations and the committee were impressed by the range of their activities, the inclusiveness of events (including representation from undergraduates at the CST annual conference) and the regular communication with your members. They were also ‘Instrumental” in putting forward ISA sponsored panels. It was clear that the group had fostered a strong sense of community.
One nominator commented:
"The Critical Studies on Terrorism (CST) Working Group has made significant contributions to advancing the field of security studies, with a particular emphasis on fostering critical perspectives and innovative approaches to understanding security in a global context. Through its initiatives, the CST Working Group has successfully promoted the research, teaching, and engagement activities of its members, establishing itself as a vital platform for collaboration and intellectual exchange. Of all the working groups of which I am a member, the CST conveners do the most to forge connections across stakeholders through organised events and regular communications.
Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group Early-Career Researcher Paper Prize - Asad Zaidi (visiting lecturer at University of Westminster)
The prize is aimed at supporting CPD’s early-career members in the development of peer-reviewed work, while at the same time carving out space in International Studies to engage with the question of empire and coloniality as fundamental to the discipline. The winner is Asad Zaidi with 'Pakistani contested worldmaking in international politics: The Afghan-Soviet War, Cold War counterinsurgency, and the struggles for decolonization'
The judging panel said:
'This paper is a deeply important and creative archival intervention that offers alternative, Southern histories to theorise the tensions, contradictions, agency of Global South actors during the Cold War as well as their role in shaping world politics. By refusing hegemonic stories of global politics and challenging methodological nationalism pervasive in dominant IR scholarship, the article offers ‘Pakistani conflictual worldmaking’ as a novel conceptualisation to capture Pakistan’s support to imperial world order and the emergent anti-colonial and counter-hegemonic struggles. In so doing, the article examines Pakistan’s role in the Afghan war highlighting the limitations and contradictions of state-led decolonising projects and how these imperial-anti-imperial encounters continue to structure world politics. Adding to the wealth of emergent scholarship in critical IR and beyond that interrogates South-South colonial dynamics, the article foregrounds the agentive politics of Southern actors to point to the limits and contradictions of formal decolonisation processes, the coloniality of Southern actors and the complexities of postcolonial statehood.'
There was one honourable mentions for this prize: Lucy Rebecca Cannon (University of Warwick) for 'This Land, My sister, is a Woman'- Understanding the role of Social Reproduction in Palestine.'
The judging panel said:
Throughout this important paper, the author expands on the need to think with the ‘everyday’ as a central means of investigation when considering and desiring to capture the totality of Palestinian women’s labour. It draws upon significant empirical material, detailing how women navigate the need to resist under the threat of genocide, and how mothers need to provide spaces of care, growth and compassion for their children. It includes an important discussion of the notion of the drawing out Instafada (Haddad, Kareen Hayfaa) and how women have used social media to drawn attention to their daily experiences of suffering under genocide, mentioning specifically the work of Gazan journalist, Bisan Owda. Through drawing links between feminist social reproduction and settler colonialism, it highlights the role of social reproduction undertaken by Palestinian women through a specifically decolonial perspective. This recognises an inability to separate the forms and motivations for types of labour from the settler colonial logics which dictate the daily rhythms of life for Palestinians.
Best PhD Thesis in Emotions in Politics and IR - Dr Anne-Marie Houde and Dr Uygar Baspehlivan
The Emotions in Politics and IR working group convenors agreed that this year’s award should go to Dr Anne-Marie Houde and Dr Uygar Baspehlivan.
Of Dr Anne-Marie Houde and Dr Uygar Baspehlivan's work the judges said:
'They won for their ground-breaking and original research on the emotional dimension of global politics, and the critical, interdisciplinary conversations their work fosters.'
There was also one honourable mention for this prize: Dr Shambhawi Tripathi (University of St Andrews)