Victoria Sjöberg, bachelor student in European Studies at the University of Gothenburg, has been awarded the Ording Prize for the best student essay in international relations from Internasjonal Politikk, a Scandinavian journal published by Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI).
In her thesis, titled “The role of diplomatic spouses: a Bourdieusian exploration: Expectations and restrictions of contemporary diplomatic spouses”, Victoria applies Bourdieu's concepts of field, capital, and gendered habitus showing that traditional ideas about the role of diplomatic wives are still upheld and practiced in the Norwegian foreign service.
Victoria’s thesis builds on and contributes to key discussions in the field of gender in diplomacy. The thesis was supervised by GenDip’s PhD researcher Monika de Silva.
The competition jury highlighted that: “the thesis demonstrates maturity, good theoretical understanding, and the ability to develop a theoretical framework and apply it to analyze original empirical material. The thesis also identifies and places its own valuable contributions to the research literature, both in terms of case selection and theory”. They also emphasized “the extraordinary nature of awarding the prize to a bachelor's thesis” in the competition for both BA and MA students.
Victoria’s thesis has been published and can be found here and among GenDip publications.