Winner of IBP 2011 Dissertations Social Sciences

Imran bin Tajudeen, 'Constituting and Reconstructing the Vernacular Heritage of Maritime Emporia in Nusantara: Historic Adaption and Contemporary Accentuations'.

Constituting and Reconstructing the Vernacular Heritage of Maritime Emporia in Nusantara is a rich and nuanced study of urban architectural forms in the ports of Austronesian Southeast Asia. In particular, the port cities of Nusantara have been shaped by both the regional diaspora and intra-regional trading and shipping networks, making them a uniquely dynamic - and challenging - environment for study. Tajudeen's reading offers a number of useful interpretive interventions into the scholarship on native architecture, not only reading "artefacts as texts", but "texts on artefacts", incorporating the dimension of time both in terms of the "predicament of ruination" and in terms of the writing and transformation of history in heritage and preservation projects. Tajudeen's work offers a new reading of the Asian urban built environment as a vernacular practice, continually being interpreted and reconstructed by local, state and regional actors, and therefore constantly in need of a creative and responsive scholarly approach. For its theoretical originality, its contributions of data from the field and its potential for advancing Asian studies scholarship, we are very pleased to award Imran bin Tajudeen the ICAS Best Thesis Prize in the Social Sciences.

Shortlist IBP 2011 Dissertations Social Sciences

Baris Isci, '"Proper" Muslim against "Authentic" Kyrgyz: Formation of Islamic Field and Secular Challenges in Kyrgyzstan'. 

Beatrice Jauregui, 'Shadows of the State, Subalterns of the State: Police and “Law and Order” in Postcolonial India'.