Established in 2001 by the Board of Directors, the ASA’s Graduate Student Paper Prize honors the best graduate student paper presented at the previous year’s Annual Meeting.
The prize includes $250 and a plaque presented at the Annual Meeting Awards Ceremony. The winning essay will be invited to submit for expedited peer review in African Studies Review, contingent upon requested revisions.
Eligibility
All papers presented by graduate students at the previous year’s Annual Meeting are eligible for submission. The paper must be listed on the Annual Meeting program to qualify. The paper may be single author or co-authored by up to two graduate students. Papers must adhere to the “General Guidelines for Manuscripts” that are used by the African Studies Review to be considered.
Submission
Papers must be submitted to the ASA Secretariat via the online form, along with an informational form including (1) author details, (2) advisor contact information, and (3) a brief statement of eligibility. The submission period opens January and closes March 15 annually. SUBMIT YOUR PAPER HERE.
2025 Committee
Claudia Gastrow (Chair)
North Carolina State University
Casey Golomski
University of New Hampshire
Martha Ndakalako
Gustavus Adolphus College
Cajetan Iheka
ASR Editor in Chief (Ex-officio)
Graduate Student Paper Prize Winners
2025
Amanda Kaminsky (University of Michigan), “Zicha: The National and Global Aspirations of Kenyan Purple Tea”
2024
Oluwasola Daniels (University of California, Davis), “How Stories of Sex Became Stories of Shame: Ale and Sexual Mobilities in Yoruba Conjugal Spaces”
2023
Mahder Habtemariam Serekberhan, “Political Possibilities: The 2019 Sudanese Uprising” and Kuukuwa Manful, “Building Classes: Secondary Schools and Sociopolitical Stratification in Ghana.”
2022
Adaugo Pamela Nwakanma, “The Gendered Economics of Political Empowerment: Lessons from Nigeria, Africa’s Largest Economy”
2021
Justin Haruyama, “Shortcut English: A Pidgin Language and Symbolic Power at a Chinese-operated Mine in Zambia”
2020
Allen Xiao, “Lagos in Life: Placing Cities in Lived Experiences”
Victoria Mary Gorham, “Displaying the Nation: Museums and Nation-Building in Tanzania and Kenya”
Shaonan Liu, “Symbol of Wealth and Prestige: A Social History of Chinese-made Enamelware in Northern Nigeria”
Amanda B. Edgell, “Vying for the ‘Man’s Seat’ – Constituency Magnitude and Mainstream Female Candidature for Non-Quota Seats in Uganda and Kenya”
2016
Moritz Nagel, “Precolonial Segmentation Revisited: Initiation Societies, Talking Drums and the Ngondo Festival in the Cameroons”
Kathleen Klaus, “Contentious Land Claims and the Non-Escalation of Violence: Evidence from Kenya’s Coast Region”
2014
Catherine Porter, “Bound and Unbound Identities: The Reconstruction of Katanga’s Nationhood Struggle”
2013
Jamie Miller, “Yes, Minister: Reassessing South Africa’s Intervention in the Angolan Civil War”
2011
Noel Twagiramungu, “The Anatomy of Leadership: A view-from-within Post-genocide Rwanda”
2025
Amanda Kaminsky (University of Michigan), “Zicha: The National and Global Aspirations of Kenyan Purple Tea”
Laura Weinstein, “The Politics of Government Expenditures in Tanzania: 1999-2007”
Bert Ingelaere, “Peasants, Power, and Ethnicity: Centre and Periphery in the Knowledge Construction in/on Post-Genocide Rwanda”
Kristin D. Phillips, “Consuming the State: Hunger, Healing, and Citizenship in Rural Tanzania”
Habtamu Mengistie Tegegne, “Revisiting Land Tenure in Eighteenth Century Gondärine Ethiopia: Zéga and the Land Charter of Däbrä-Sehay Qwesqwam Church”
Severine Autesserre, “Local Violence, National Peace? Local Dynamics of Violence during the Transition in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo”
2005
Abena Dove Osseo-Asare, “’Dangerous Properties’: Poisoned Arrows and the Case of Strophanthus hispidus in Colonial Gold Coast, 1885 – 1922″
Kristin E. Cheney, “Village Life is Better than Town Life’: identity, migration and development in the Lives of Ugandan child citizens”
2003
Staffan Lindberg, “The ‘Democraticness’ of Multiparty Elections: Participation, Competition, and Legitimacy in Africa”
Benjamin Lawrance, “Le Revolte des Femmes: Economic Upheaval and the Gender of Political Authority in Lome, Togo, 1931-33”
