SMA awards: MASA Dissertation Award
The MASA Dissertation Award Committee strongly encourages submission of nominations for the 2011 competition. Submissions must be dissertations approved, accepted, and filed as the final version with the candidate’s university within the two calendar years prior to the award year. The candidate’s dissertation advisor should attest that this is the copy submitted. Candidates should write to the Chairperson of the MASA Dissertation Awards Committee for advice about the distribution of the thesis and supporting references to committee members.
For details, contact Sean Brotherton pierre.brotherton@yale.edu, MASA Dissertation Award Committee Chair,
- Because the dissertations will not be confidentialized, if you do not wish a committee member to evaluate your work, please state so.
- The Convenor of the Committee can include additional members, according to the numbers of dissertations submitted for consideration
- The Committee reserves the right not to recommend an award in any given year
- The Committee reserves the right to make the award to more than one candidate, with the prize money to be shared in that year
Guidelines for Judging for the MASA Dissertation Award
- The work should draw on the distinctive methodological approaches of anthropology
- The work must make its case convincingly, as follows
- It presents evidence
- It makes a thesis.
- It is not just a general (descriptive) ethnography.
- It employs multiple methods (for triangulation of data)
- The analysis is robust
Other characteristics we hope to see included are that:
- It is innovative, a new idea, pushes theory and discussion further along
- It is situated in the world of contemporary problems
- It is readable
- It is well organized
- Relevant history, theory, and the pedigree of thought are discussed