News
Esther and Roxanne won the AfricaThesis Award 2013
Esther Bergstra and Roxanne Hornman (Landscape Architecture) have won the Africa Thesis Award 2013. For their thesis Cyclone Resilient Landscape: the Case of Vatomandry, Madagascar, Bergstra and Hornman conducted research into the effects of cyclones in Madagascar.
(for full text see African Studies Centre website)
They focused on the Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) programme of the non-governmental organization CARE, that aims to diminish the effects of cyclones. The students conclude that an approach that would integrate the ‘landscape based design approach’, a method commonly used in landscape architecture, could improve the resilience of the landscape and its people.
The award will be presented on Saturday 23 November during the NVAS Afrikastudiedag 'Everyday Africa'. It will take place in the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, Steenstraat 1, Leiden. You can register via the NVAS website.
Second and Third Prize
Anouk Evers (Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, Social and Cultural Science) won the second prize for her thesis Barack Obama, back off!: Framing Strategies and Postcolonial Discourse in Debating Uganda’s Anti-homosexuality Bill. The third prize was a joint prize for two theses: The Afrikadeutschen of Kroondal, 1849-1949 by Marcus Melck (Universiteit van Pretoria), and Grande Hotel Beira Mozambique: Adjustment of a Vertical Slum in Mozambique for to Improve the Living Conditions of the Current Inhabitants, by Robert Cruiming (TU Delft, Faculty of Architecture).