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Student papers,

projects, and Thesis bank

Welcome to our student project showcase! Here you’ll find a collection of projects completed by both current and former students. These projects span a wide range of topics, disciplines, and areas and are an excellent resource for inspiration and guidance as you begin your projects. 

Whether you’re a new student just getting started or a seasoned veteran looking for fresh ideas, you’re sure to find something of interest here. So take a look around, and start exploring the work of our talented student community!

Degree Projects

BA Project

Fra såret nationalisme til positiv patriotisme?

Diskursen om patriotisme og nationalisme blandt unge kinesere

“Working with this kind of textual analysis also made me more aware of narratives being promoted in our own media here in Denmark”

What inspired you to write this paper?

I’m generally fascinated with how narratives shape our view of the world, and at the time I had been reading about the Communist Party’s campaign to promote nationalism in China, so I wanted to do discourse analysis on Chinese news media texts, to see how this played out in practice. I then came upon an article about an incident in 2016, where a large group young Chinese netizens had used VPN to get around the “Great Firewall”, which blocks them from accessing many foreign internet sites, and mounted an attack on the Facebook pages of newly elected Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen and some pro-independence Taiwanese media. I was curious about how this had been portrayed in the Chinese media, and how it fitted into the nationalistic narratives being pushed by the Communist Party.

What did you learn from the experience?

In addition to deepening my understanding of nationalistic discourse in Chinese media, working with this kind of textual analysis also made me more aware of narratives being promoted in our own media here in Denmark. It helped me see a lot of things that I hadn’t noticed before.

Jacob Hedegaard Click here to Download

MA Project

Greening the Bean?

An assessment of Danish corporate commitments to zero deforestation in the context of the Brazilian soybean production

“…it is not only the Brazilian Amazon Forest that is being destroyed, but that the enormous demand for soy is driving deforestation into areas that are just as vulnerable from an ecological and bio-diverse point of view”

What inspired you to write this paper? 

I had focused on environmental issues throughout my BA and MA, so I naturally wanted to write about this theme for my final thesis. Deforestation is an urgent global issue, and the media attention is heavily focused on the Amazon rainforest. One of the points I wanted to make is that it is not only the Brazilian Amazon Forest that is being destroyed, but that the enormous demand for soy is driving deforestation into areas that are just as vulnerable from an ecological and bio-diverse point of view, in this case the Brazilian savanna, or Cerrado. When Danish companies claim that the soy that either directly or indirectly goes into their food production is deforestation-free, this is not always the case, as the guidelines used by the certification agencies issuing the approval stamp more than often do not take into account the intense deforestation taking place in the Cerrado, which is subject to a very different environmental protection than the Amazon. 

What did you learn from the experience? 

I gained detailed insight into a specific area and also realized how well the application of a theoretical framework can steer and elucidate a very real issue.  

Maria Ulsig Click here to Download

Student papers

term paper

A hybrid democracy?

The Brazilian Supreme Court’s role as a policy-maker and the implications for its democracy

” And yet, some of these elections are not even truly free, as the access to run for an office may be hampered in different ways, or the access of the voters themselves may be subject to different obstacles that are not always apparent.“

What inspired you to write this paper? 

I wanted to investigate to what extent Brazil is behaving as a modern democratic state, and if the concept “hybrid democracy” could in fact describe it. 

What did you learn from the experience? 

I got a better understanding of political theory, which was something I found difficult in the beginning of the semester course.  

Maria Ulsig Click here to Download

term paper

Abenomics

And Its Political Impact On Energy Policy And Climate Change Goals

” ‘Abenomics’ has shaped energy policy and climate change goals based on a prioritization of economic growth.“

What inspired you to write this paper? 

I am generally interested in the issue of climate change and how Japan responds to that issue. We also had a session on Japan and climate change in the course Analysis of Contemporary Japanese Society and Politics with a guest lecture from a member of Fridays for Future Japan. In my paper, I wanted to see how ‘Abenomics‘ and its economic growth-oriented policies have shaped Japan’s energy policy in the aftermath of the 3.11 Fukushima Incident and climate change goals at the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris 2015.  

What did you learn from the experience? 

From this experience, I generally got an insight into Japanese politics, especially concerning ‘Abenomics’ and its political influence on energy policy and climate change goals. In addition, I learned what political actors influence policymaking in Japan and what public response in Japan is to that policy-making. Lastly, I learned to apply relevant political theories when writing my paper and practiced incorporating various source materials in Japanese.  

Finn Siegfried Hansen Click here to Download

term paper

“Comfort Women” in Nations for Men

Nationalism, Gender, and Politics of Emotion in Media Representations of the “Comfort Women” Issue

“both Japanese and Korean nationalism employ similar patriarchal views of gender, but for different purposes, resulting in struggles between the two countries, manifested through discourses that bind patriarchal nationalist principles to metaphors.”

What inspired you to write this paper? 

During my Analysis of Politics and Society in Contemporary Japan course, I was introduced to the concept of “politics of emotion” and found it pertinent as a method of inquiry regarding the “comfort women” issue involving Japan and South Korea. Furthermore, during another course, Analysis and Presentation of Japanese Texts, I was introduced to the study-manga medium, which alerted me to the potential of manga to influence people’s emotions regarding academic topics such as history. A fellow student discovered one such study manga about “comfort women” created by the Japanese ultra-nationalist right, and this inspired me to look for similar works from Korea, culminating in the analysis presented in my assignment.

What did you learn from the experience? 

The experience of writing this assignment taught me the specific ways in which media analysis may be used to illuminate a political issue such as the one surrounding the former “comfort women.” Moreover, throughout this experience, I went in further depth with Japanese-language material than I had done in any previous assignment, which proved to be yet another valuable learning experience

Alexander Mariager Nielsen Click here to Download
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