Catherine Gibson awarded BASEES Postgraduate Prize

Catherine Gibson, a PhD student at the European University Institute in Florence and outgoing PGR Student Representative to the BASEES Committee, has been awarded the 2019 BASEES Postgraduate Prize for ‘Shading, lines, colors: mapping ethnographic taxonomies of “European Russia”’ in Nationalities Papers, Vol 46, Issue 4 (2018).

Judges Kelly Hignett and Andrea Gullotta wrote, “Catherine Gibson's well-written and extensively researched article sheds new light on the importance of cartography in shaping the ethnographic landscape of the Russian Empire in the second half of the nineteenth century. Drawing on an impressive list of secondary sources, and a close analysis of two ethnographic maps (Keppen 1851 and Rittikh 1875), Gibson convincingly argues that the techniques used to create these maps have helped the construction of the ethnographic taxonomies in use in the Russian Empire. Gibson further shows the impact of cartography on the visual representation of ethnicity and nationality within the Empire. Inspiring, well-researched and methodologically rigorous, Catherine Gibson's article is a deserving winner of this year's BASEES Postgraduate Prize.”