SO4B2      One Unit
MSc in Human Rights and Politics Dissertation

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

The dissertation provides you with an opportunity to develop an independent research question tackling a conceptual or empirical predicament that you are grappling with within the broad field of human rights and politics. Dissertation workshops aim to support your development as a thinker and researcher who produces an independent piece of writing. They will run alongside individual meetings with your dissertation supervisor.

Students will be advised on thinking about research on human rights and politics, starting with how to identify a strong research problem. Dissertation workshops will cover a range of topics, including the structure of a dissertation, ethical and practical challenges in research, refining your research problem, deciding on research methods, and writing the dissertation. The MSc in Human Rights and Politics takes a pluralist approach towards topics, concepts and research methods and does not seek to prescribe any particular areas of research, theories or methods.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn and Winter Term.

There will be an expected 6 hours of lectures or seminars dedicated for students on your programme as well as one-to-one meetings with your supervisors in WT and ST.

There will be two sessions during AT for ALL MSc students based in the Sociology department. One of these will be offered in conjunction with LSE Library and provide basic guidance about planning your dissertation, such as selecting a suitable topic, designing the research and reviewing the existing literature.

Students will be required to submit a provisional dissertation title in AT, plus an extended dissertation statement in WT.

Seale, C. (2018), Researching Society and Culture (Fourth Edition), Sage.

Cerwonka, Allaine & Liisa H. Malkki. 2007. Improvising Theory: Process and Temporality in Ethnographic Fieldwork. Chicago University Press.

Small, Mario Luis & Jessica McCrory Calarco. 2022. Qualitative Literacy: A Guide to Evaluating Ethnographic and Interview Research. University of California Press.

Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. 1999. Decolonizing Methodologies. Zed Books.

Dissertation (100%, 10000 words) in August

An electronic copy of the dissertation, to be uploaded to Moodle, no later than 4.00pm on Thursday 13th of August 2026. 

Dissertations may be up to and no more than 10,000 words, must be word-processed and be fully referenced using a recognised citation system.

Attendance at all workshops and submission of all set coursework is required.