Description: The Political Geography Graduate Student Paper Awards are $250 awards that go to the best paper on a political geography topic written by MA and PhD students (judged in separate divisions), who are PGSG members.
Guidelines:
1. The 2024-25 cycle deadline is December 15, 2024. Digital copies of the paper must be submitted as PDFs to the current Graduate Student Paper Award Committee Chair by this deadline.
2. The competition is open to all graduate students, however a student may not receive a Student Paper Competition award more than once during her/his tenure as a student.
3. A paper selected for this award may NOT be awarded a paper award from another AAG Affinity or Specialty Group in the same calendar year. If the PGSG awardee has received an award from another AAG Affinity or Specialty Group, they must decline either the PGSG award or the other award. If the initial awardee declines the PGSG award, the award will be made to the next highest-ranked, qualified applicant.
4. Entries must be on a topic in political geography.
5. The entries must be research papers and not complete theses or dissertations. Papers submissions should be the length of a typical journal article (7,000-11,000 words, including references). Applicants may use the reference style of their target journal.
6. Paper entries must have been presented at a professional meeting during the period beginning with the first day of the previous AAG Annual Meeting and concluding with the last day of the next AAG Annual Meeting (this includes both the previous year’s AAG through the end of the approaching AAG, as well as any other professional presentations that occurred between the two AAG meetings).
7. Submissions will be evaluated separately according to the Masters and Ph.D. student divisions. Upon submission to the chair, paper entries must indicate if they are competing in the Masters or Ph.D. division.
8. Submissions will be judged foremost on their contributions to research in political geography, as well as their written clarity and methodological and theoretical soundness.
9. All monetary prizes are awarded at the discretion of the Student Paper Award Committee. Awards will normally include: (a) Master’s Student Award ($250), (b) Doctoral Student Award ($250), (c) up to three Honorable Mention awards ($150).
10. The results of the Student Paper Award competitions will be announced to the winners just prior to the AAG Annual Meeting. The awards will be formally announced at the PGSG Business Meeting and payment will take place shortly thereafter. The awardees’ names and paper titles will be forwarded to the AAG for publication in the AAG Newsletter.
11. Any questions pertaining to eligibility will be resolved by the Graduate Student Paper Award Committee, listed here.
12. Due to the high number of submissions, the award committee cannot provide feedback on individual papers.
13. NEW in 2023-24: Award winners are encouraged to submit their papers for publication. The following journals* have expressed interest in receiving submissions from PGSG award winners: Antipode; Gender, Place, & Culture; Geopolitics; Political Geography; Political Geography Open Research; Society & Space; Territory, Politics, Governance.
*Journal editors and editorial board members: If you would like to add your journal to the above list, please contact the PGSG President (Meredith DeBoom; deboom [at] mailbox.sc.edu).