About
Alicia C. Decker is an Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, African Studies, and History at Penn State. She earned her doctoral degree in women’s studies from Emory University, a master’s degree in gender studies from Makerere University in Uganda, and a bachelor of arts degree in anthropology from the University of Minnesota. Her research and teaching interests include gender and militarism, African women’s history, and global feminisms. She is the author of In Idi Amin’s Shadow: Women, Gender, and Militarism in Uganda (Ohio University Press, 2014), and co-author with Andrea Arrington of Africanizing Democracies: 1980 to the Present (Oxford University Press, 2015). Her scholarly articles have been published in various academic journals, and she is co-editor of the Oxford Encyclopedia of African Women’s History. Decker serves on the editorial board at the Journal of African Military History and is working on a new book titled “Women and the Specter of Militarism: Uganda after Military Rule,” which examines the gendered aftermath of military governance in Uganda and how militarism persists in society, affecting women and men differently.
Research signals
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Research topics
- Sociology
- Political Science
- Media studies
- History
- Psychology
- Criminology
- Law
- Gender studies
Selected publications
Everyday People and the Making of Authoritarianism
The Journal of African History · 2026-01-01
articleOpen access1st authorCorrespondingThe American Historical Review · 2025-06-01
article1st authorCorrespondingAfrican Studies Review · 2025-09-01
articleOpen access1st authorCorrespondingSamuel Fury Childs Daly. Soldier’s Paradise: Militarism in Africa after Empire. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2024. 284 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $28.95. Paper. ISBN: 9781478030836.
African Military History and Historiography
2024-05-22 · 1 citations
reference-entry1st authorCorrespondingAfrican military history is currently experiencing something of a boom—a phase of exponential growth marked not only by the foundation of a dedicated new journal (Journal of African Military History) and book series (War and Militarism in African History, Ohio University Press), but also by increasing theoretical and methodological reflection. Two main factors account for this flurry of scholarly interest. Firstly, it must be frankly recognized that the analytical advances that underpinned the broader field of Africanist historiography since the 1960s have only recently begun to make their impact felt on the study of African warfare, which has long struggled to shed the legacies of Eurocentric scholarship. The comparatively late “decolonization” of the subdiscipline explains why much African military history is to be found in works not explicitly advertised as such. These latter studies—or at least the most influential among them—are included in this bibliography so as to provide readers with a sense of the complex (and not necessarily linear) development of the field. No less important is the incontestable fact that armed conflict and other forms of violence continue to represent key aspects of the social experience of large sections of the continent’s population. An increasing awareness of the deep, in some cases precolonial, roots of many of these conflicts has meant that historians have been prompted to bring their skills to bear on some of the most pressing problems faced by the continent. This said, the field still suffers from some limitations. African authors—as this bibliography bears out—are still not as widely represented as they should be, and it is also the case that the postcolonial period remains better served in terms of scholarship than earlier periods. This accounts for the decision to subdivide the relevant section of this bibliography, War and Militarism in Postcolonial Africa, into separate thematic subheadings. The other sections, conversely, only comprise one main heading, or limit themselves to distinguishing between Overviews and Regional/Local Studies.
What are the challenges facing Africanist and African women's and gender studies scholars?
Women's studies quarterly · 2024
Senior authorCorresponding- Sociology
- Political Science
- Gender studies
What are the challenges facing Africanist and African women's and gender studies scholars? Gabeba Baderoon (bio), Maha Marouan (bio), and Alicia Decker (bio) [End Page 107] Editors of Pandemonium spoke with Gabeba Baderoon, Maha Marouan, and Alicia Decker on August 4 and 28, 2023. Alicia Decker: Out of our shared challenges came the idea to create an alternative space to engage in critical conversations and scholarly work on feminist issues in Africa and the African diaspora—dynamics that are not equitable all the time. The African Feminist Initiative (AFI) is a transnational virtual community that my colleague Gabeba Baderoon and I started at Penn State in 2015. Gabeba and I came together to create a space to think critically about African feminisms, a truly global transnational collective that is actively engaged in all levels of feminist activism, dialogue, and research both within and outside the academy. In 2018, Maha joined us as our third codirector, so the three of us function as equals … as a triumvirate. As of 2023, AFI has over five hundred members, many from Africa, but also from Europe, South America, Asia, and North America. We have held six international conferences and workshops and have become a hub for virtual transnational feminist movement across different kinds of borders. AFI serves as an example of a feminist community that's growing in the midst of backlash. Transnational feminisms are obviously not new, but it does seem like it is a space that is continuing to grow and thrive, consisting of actively politicized communities addressing some of the challenges the discipline is facing and ensuring there is space for conversations that are more challenging in certain institutional and national settings. Gabeba Baderoon: I'm a South African, so a lot of my work tends to be on South Africa. I have strong connections with the universities there. Austerity has been the reality there, and in the U.S., of course, too. I'm so grateful to have this as my job. So how does something like women's and gender studies in Africa flourish? The story is sometimes a little surprising: sometimes outside of the classroom. But there are also positive developments to report on what is happening inside the classroom and inside the university. For instance, the development of the Department of Feminist Studies at the [End Page 108] University of Cape Town is just a magnificent arrival of something that has been in discussion among many of us for a long time, since the late 1990s. Maha Marouan: I grew up in Morocco, that's my home, but I work at a U.S. institution, so when I do work in the continent, I am challenged differently. Some of the challenges for me are: How do you form feminist solidarities transnationally? How do you challenge global hierarchies? How do you forge feminist linkages without undermining feminist politics of resistance as forged in the specificity of one's history and locale? I get a sense at times that I am caught between two worlds, but most of the time, I feel deeply enriched by my positionality. The work that we do through AFI is to continue to find linkages and learn from one another. We do that through our monthly feminist dialogues, we do it through transnational collaborative projects that reflect the complexity of our commitment and positionality but without privileging one particular mode of knowledge. This does not mean this is a smooth-sailing process. In fact, I am constantly faced with challenges. Identity politics play a part. For instance, Alicia's idea to work collaboratively with scholars from different parts of the continent to examine the state of women and gender studies in academia was an important initiative. But there was a lot of tension when all of us from different backgrounds and locales met. Because Alicia and I are academically situated in the Global North, we were perceived by many of our colleagues in the continent as reinforcing these global hierarchies by undertaking this project. My African belonging was also challenged. As a North African, I was perceived as "less authentically" African—despite the fact that I do not subscribe to the colonial division...
Introduction: African Feminist Subjectivities and the Infinite Dimensions of Relationality
Feminist formations · 2024-12-01
articleStitching Justice: Textiles as a Means for Contemporary Social Justice
2024-01-01
other1st authorCorrespondingThe Journal of African History · 2023
1st authorCorresponding- Sociology
- Political Science
- Criminology
Confinement and Politics in Uganda - Carceral Afterlives: Prisons, Detention, and Punishment in Postcolonial Uganda By Katherine Bruce-Lockhart. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2022. Pp. 280. 36.95, paperback (ISBN: 9780821424780); ebook (ISBN: 9780821447741).
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History · 2023-01-30 · 1 citations
reference-entry1st authorCorrespondingAbstract Women in Uganda have had a complex relationship with the state. During the precolonial period, there were two main types of political organization: kingdom states and “nonstate” segmentary societies. Most women in kingdom states were left out of the patron–client relationship system and accessed resources through their husbands, brothers, and sons. A small number of royal women, particularly within Buganda, had significant political power. Less is known about women in precolonial segmentary societies because of the relative lack of sources. In the mid-19th century, long-distance traders arrived in Buganda, bringing Islam and a heightened demand for slaves. The state treated enslaved women as commodities that could be sold or traded at any time. When European explorers and missionaries arrived shortly thereafter, they brought Christianity, as well as their own ideas about gender, many of which limited women’s power. After the British declared a protectorate over Uganda in 1894, missionaries worked closely with the new colonial government to educate women for domesticity. Daughters of the elite learned to become helpmates to their future husbands, who, in turn, were the functionaries of indirect rule. The colonial period also saw the advent of the club movement, which trained women to be good wives and mothers. After World War II, women’s clubs became increasingly political. Through the Uganda Council of Women, members learned to influence public opinion and government policies. However, very few women participated in formal politics at this time. After Uganda gained independence in 1962, women’s issues became increasingly central to the state. Nonetheless, activists struggled for autonomy in a political landscape that was chaotic and increasingly authoritarian. The militarization of the state, coupled with frequent and unpredictable regime changes, made women’s lives more difficult. Although more women have been elected to office and appointed to cabinet-level positions in the early 21st century, civil war and political instability have presented numerous challenges to women and their livelihoods.
The Journal of African History · 2019-03-01
article1st authorCorrespondingAn abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Frequent coauthors
- 2 shared
Gabeba Baderoon
- 1 shared
Roman Dembiński
Centrum Badań Molekularnych i Makromolekularnych Polskiej Akademii Nauk
- 1 shared
Yan Li
- 1 shared
Eliot Blackburn
Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis
- 1 shared
Andrea L. Arrington-Sirois
- 1 shared
Summer Forester
Carleton College
- 1 shared
Maha Marouan
- 1 shared
Andrea L. Arrington
Awards & honors
- Judith Hardes WGSS Reproductive Justice Undergraduate Studen…
- Mimi Barash Coppersmith Endowed Scholarship in Women’s Studi…
- Laura Richardson Whitaker Memorial Undergraduate Award in Wo…
- Wietlisbach Family Award in the Department of Women’s Studie…
- Judith Hardes WGSS Reproductive Justice Graduate Student Awa…
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