Dea will carry out her masters thesis work during early 2017, on a project entitled ”Living Caste: Educated Rural Dalit Women’s Lived Experiences in Urban South India”, focusing on the informal sphere of young educated dalit women’s lived experiences especially the aspect of migrating from rural to urban India. Dea has previously lived in the Indian states of Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu for 16 months in total.

Nashfa has carried out her field work during the summer 2016. After a few weeks staying at CREST in Kozhikode, she has spent time in Male, the capital city of the Maldives, working on a project entitled ”Establishing a Deposit-Refund System in the Maldives – an ex-ante Evaluation”, The project deals with the management of polyethylene-terephthalate (PET) plastic waste, a complex issue for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) such as the Maldives. This is because of the geographical complexity, small landmass, and  lack of infrastructure and resources. Furthermore, changes from subsistence lifestyles to increased consumerism, increased imports, and population growth has escalated the number of PET bottles in the waste stream. While PET is deemed as the most optimal plastic for beverage bottles, and for recyclability, the Maldives lacks vital technical infrastructure to manage the PET waste in an environmentally sound manner. For her thesis, she seeks to conduct a research assessing the feasibility of implementing a deposit-refund system in the Maldives.