University students win prestigious Commonwealth Awards

As part of the Round Table’s centenary celebrations, Melanie Bunce, Asa Cusack, Stacey Glennie, Alexander Henderson, Aileen Quinn and Lindsay Scorgie will each receive a £1,000 award, a three-week research grant to another Commonwealth country, and the opportunity to have their final work published in the UK’s oldest international affairs journal.

The award-winners, who range from undergraduate to PhD level, will travel to the Commonwealth countries of Australia, Ghana, Jamaica, Kenya, Uganda and Zambia.

Their diverse research areas include the role of women in Ghana’s independence movement, the response of Australia’s Masonic lodges to the First World War, and the production of international news stories on conflict in Africa.

Dr Venkat Iyer, Editor of The Round Table, commended the award-winners: “I am delighted that, in its 100th year, the Round Table is supporting six exceptional students who will introduce a Commonwealth perspective into their existing research.

“This year is also the 60th anniversary of the modern Commonwealth, and with 60 per cent of the Commonwealth’s population under 30 years of age, the Round Table believes that it is essential to help students understand the relevance of the Commonwealth as a values based organisation. We’re very grateful to the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office for its generous sponsorship of this scheme and we look forward very much to seeing the award-winners’ work.”

Notes to Editors:

Further details of the winning candidates are noted below. To contact the award winners through the Round Table, or for more information on the centenary awards, please contact Daisy Cooper or Zoë Ware at roundtablecentenary@hotmail.co.uk or check the website http://www.moot.org.uk/CentenaryAwards.asp.

Journalists are kindly requested to acknowledge the financial support of £20,000 provided by the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Founded in 1910, The Round Table, Britain's oldest international affairs journal, provides analysis and commentary on all aspects of international affairs. The journal is the major source for coverage of the policy issues concerning the contemporary Commonwealth and its role in international affairs, with occasional articles on themes of historical interest.

The Round Table has for many years been a repository of informed scholarship, opinion, and judgement regarding both international relations in general, and the Commonwealth in particular, with authorship and readership drawn from the worlds of government, business, finance and academia.

In celebration of the centenary of The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs and the 60th anniversary of the modern Commonwealth, the Round Table Commonwealth Awards for Young Scholars will be awarded to six students from Commonwealth countries studying at a UK university in the academic year 2008-09. The centenary awards aim to enhance understanding of the modern Commonwealth among UK universities and enable six students to contribute to academic literature on the relevance of the modern Commonwealth in the 21st century.

Award-winners:

Lindsay Scorgie (Canadian): Uganda

Lindsay Scorgie is a PhD student studying at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Her wider research concerns violence, and international responses to it, in the Great Lakes region of central Africa. With her award, she will travel to Uganda to investigate these issues. The Commonwealth, as one of a number of actors involved in conflict prevention in the region, will be central to her research. In addition, questions about the effects of Rwanda’s likely accession to the Commonwealth will be considered.

Stacey Glennie (Canadian): Australia

Stacey Glennie is studying for an MA in International Relations at the London School of Economics (LSE). Her research considers the institution of Freemasonry and its response to the First World War in Canada and Britain, this award will allow her to extend her research to Australia, where she will focus on the Masonic Museum in Sydney. Her work will show how international organisations, be they fraternal, religious or otherwise, have been and continue to be both a reflection of and a promoter of Commonwealth ties and in doing so, it will expose many of the shared values and core beliefs which have long pulled individuals from diverse Commonwealth countries together. At the same time, it will shed light on the myriad of ways in which the Commonwealth and its meaning for ordinary citizens has changed over the past century.

Aileen Quinn (British): Ghana

Aileen Quinn is studying for an MA in Cultural History at the University of Manchester. Her research focuses on the history of women’s involvement in the National Liberation Movement in the Gold Coast/Ghana. On her visit she hopes to highlight the importance of women in Commonwealth politics both historically and in the contemporary era. She will use the Republic of Ghana Public Records and Archive Administration Department (PRAAD) in Accra, and regional archives in Kumasi. She also hopes to conduct interviews with Ghanaians, including those who were involved in the independence movement and women now involved in Ghanaian politics, in order to gauge perceptions of the past and how gender roles have changed in the past 50 years.

Asa Cusack (British): Jamaica

Asa Cusack is an MA (and soon to be PhD) student studying Politics and International Relations at the University of Sheffield. His research considers the role of ideas in the creation of regional economic and political units, and focuses particularly on the Caribbean. He will produce a comparative study of Jamaica’s membership of CARICOM and the Commonwealth and consider politico-economic, and ideological reasons for membership.

Alexander Henderson (South African): Zambia

Alexander Henderson is an undergraduate student studying History and War Studies at King’s College, University of London. He is researching Zambia’s post-colonial foreign policy, and particularly Kenneth Kaunda’s support for independence movements in neighbouring countries. He hopes to show the effects of this policy on contemporary Zambia and its current international relations. In addition, he will focus on the role of the Commonwealth in regional southern African politics, through Commonwealth policies and through the accession of Mozambique to the association. While in Zambia he hopes to consult government archives and conduct interviews with politicians and academics.

Melanie Bunce (New Zealander): Kenya

Melanie Bunce is studying for a DPhil titled ‘Journalism in crises: The production of international news stories on conflict in Africa’ at the University of Oxford. She will travel to Nairobi, the capital for foreign reporters reporting on North and East Africa, and conduct in-depth interviews with journalists, and the sources that journalists use (academics, politicians, aid workers, etc). She will consider the ways that the news media effects understanding of other countries, feeding into political and policy decisions, and will ask whether there is a special obligation for members of the Commonwealth to report on events in fellow Commonwealth countries.

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