Fourth Onon Prize Awarded to Professor Manduhai Buyandelger

The Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit is very pleased to announce that the fourth Onon Prize (2022) has been awarded to Professor Manduhai Byandelger, for her outstanding contributions to Inner Asian Studies.

The Onon Prize was established in recognition of Professor Urgunge Onon’s contribution to the foundation of MIASU. The prize is intended to honour those who have made a substantial contribution to scholarship on the Mongolian & Inner Asian region.

On the event of Professor Byandelger’s Onon Prize Lecture, (2 October 2023), Professor David Sneath welcomed Manduhai as the winner of the Onon prize 2022.

Professor Byandelgar presented some of her research work in a talk titled: Crisis in Animal Rescue:

Urbanization in a Multispecies World.

Here she examines how dogs and cats navigate Mongolia’s rapidly urbanizing capital and how new forms of care, rescue, and moral responsibility emerge in the process. Drawing on preliminary ethnographic work with rescuers, shelters, and online activist networks, it traces how urban development, displacement, and Buddhist ideas of rebirth shape the value and vulnerability of animal lives. The work highlights the rise of grassroots rescue efforts, the emotional labor of caregivers, and the emergence of a new affective language that frames animals as kin rather than disposable beings. Through these multispecies encounters, the study explores how modern Mongolia negotiates compassion, inequality, and coexistence in a transforming city.