This LSE student wrote her whole dissertation on London chicken shops

It was called ‘Bossman, two wings and chips please’


Due to the current lockdown situation, students aren’t able to take the normal diss pics in front of their uni building, which is a bit gutting for them. But this hasn’t stopped people from getting creative; from Photoshopping background pics of their uni to some really cool diss topics. People have been uploading some genuinely interesting dissertations to Twitter, from the Uni of Birmingham student who wrote her diss on Fiat 500 twitter, to the UEA student who rapped his entire diss.

The latest viral dissertation topics comes from Farhana Aktar, a Sociology student from LSE, who titled her diss: “Bossman, two wings and chips please; An ethnographic project on youth space construction in London chicken shops”. The aim of this was to explore the positive aspects of chicken shops for young people that is beyond the taste of the chicken.

Farhana posted a picture of her diss to Twitter, along with the caption “5,000 wings and 10,000 words later! On this blessed month I can finally say my dissertation is complete! This one is for my Aama, Aaba and all the Bossmans out there.” The post already had over 5,000 likes.

Speaking to The Tab, Farhana said London chicken shop boxes are typically branded with ‘stop knife crime’ and so she wanted to demonstrate how young people use chicken shops as a social space.

“I carried out a range of ethnographies in London chicken shops and spoke to young people as well as employees to really understand how this social space was used and constructed”, Farhana told The Tab. She added her work “gave the participants a voice and let them say their feelings about their own world rather than what health magazines dictate”.

Farhana added: “I collected the work on the sociology of food and urban sociology and substituted those ideas for a chicken shop model.” It took her a total of eight months to complete, and is yet to receive her grade back yet.

She explained on Twitter the project was inspired by BBC reporting surrounding the chicken box campaigns.

The boxes were branded “crude” and “offensive” by shadow home secretary Diane Abbott.

“I wanted to steer away from this stereotypes and recognise the importance chicken shops have for young people,” Farhana said.

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I didn’t sign up for an online degree, and I shouldn’t be made to pay £9k to do one