This Africa Thesis Award is made annually to Masters theses that are completed on the basis of a study conducted on sub-Saharan Africa thematically related to socio-geographical, economic, political, juridical or anthropological issues or focusing on the humanities, such as history, religion and literature.  The thesis has to reflect independent empirical research and must have been awarded with distinction (80% or higher or a Dutch rating of at least an 8). The award aims to encourage student research and writing on sub-Saharan Africa and to promote the study of African cultures and societies. The jury comprises of a panel of international academics and other stakeholders and attaches importance to an original approach and insight, and to the relevance of the research to a scientific understanding of the issues covered. The ASC also seeks to attract theses that stand out in terms of subject matter and demonstrate a sound methodological approach. All theses that are submitted are made available via the ASC’s library catalogue.

Marcus Melck was awarded his Magister Hereditatis Culturaeque Scientieae (MHCS) degree in History at the April 2013 graduation ceremony cum laude. According to his supervisor, Prof Karen Harris of the Department of Historical and Heritage Studies, his “study made a valuable contribution to the expanding field of identity studies on the one hand as well as the history of German immigration to South Africa on the other”. It was therefore much more than a mere history of the Afrikadeutschen in the region of Kroondal, but is at the same time a narrative in “which the position of the community’s growing association with their adopted landscape or Heimat serves to create the inevitable counterpoint to their ideological identity as Germans and thereby too, its reconciliation in the name Afrikadeutsche (African-Germans).