Justin V Hastings and David Ubilava (The University of Sydney) have been awarded the Journal of Peace Research's Best Visualization Award for their article entitled 'Agricultural roots of social conflict in Southeast Asia'. An independent jury selected Hastings and Ubilava's article from over 150 articles published in the journal's 2025 volume. The award was announced on 4 March.
The article examines how harvest-time-dependent shifts in employment and income affect political violence and social unrest across Southeast Asia. Hastings and Ubilava find that during harvest season political violence in rice-producing croplands increases whereas social unrest decreases.
The jury highlighted that the article’s visualizations stand out for their clarity, coherence and ability to communicate complex, multidimensional data in an intuitive manner. The figures are consistently well‑designed, with informative captions, readable labels and balanced layouts. Figure 1 was particularly praised for its effective presentation of spatial variation in social conflict both within and across countries. Figure 3 skillfully illustrates temporal patterns in rice‑harvest cycles through a clear interplay of geographic features and labeling.
PRIO and the JPR's Co-Editors-in-Chief, Gudrun Østby and Sebastian Schutte, warmly congratulate Justin V Hastings and David Ubilava.
