NOTE: Full PDFs of selected articles are on my research gate. If you have trouble accessing my work, please email me at pnwakanm@uci.edu
Published
Academic Writing
Nwakanma, Adaugo Pamela. 2025. “Cultivating Joy in Academia” in Disrupting Political Science: Black Women Reimagining the Discipline, edited by Angela Katrina Lewis-Maddox, Seattle, WA: SUNY Press, 2025, pp. 65-78. https://doi.org/10.1515/9798855800883-008
Nwakanma, Adaugo Pamela. 2022. “Theorizing Justice from the Margins: Black Feminist Insights on Political (Protest) Behavior” Politics, Groups, and Identities
Nwakanma, Adaugo Pamela. 2022. “From Black Lives Matter to EndSARS: Women’s Socio-political Power and the Transnational Movement for Black Lives“ Perspectives on Politics
–Winner of the 2022 Society for the Study of Social Problems Global Division Paper Award
–Shortlisted for the 2023 International Sociological Association RC05 Prize for Best Postgraduate Paper
Nwakanma, Adaugo Pamela. 2021. “On Scholarship and the Hyphenated African Identity” in African Scholars and Intellectuals in the North American Academy: Reflections of Exile and Migration. London: Routledge
Nwakanma, Adaugo Pamela. 2020. “Women, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Development in Africa“. in Yacob-Haliso O., Falola T. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of African Women’s Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
-Winner of the 2019 American Political Science Association Best Graduate Student Paper on Inclusion and Entrepreneurship, Class and Inequality Section, Kauffman Foundation
Engaged Public Scholarship & Creative Writing
Nwakanma, Adaugo Pamela. 2025. “Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan, Gender and Body Politics in Nigeria” The Republic
Nwakanma, Adaugo Pamela. 2024. Situating Nigerian Women in Global Black Politics Discourse“ Black Perspectives, African American Intellectual History Society Blog
“Pursuing a Professional Path in Academia” Break the Boxes Podcast Interview. 2021.
Nwakanma, Adaugo Pamela. 2020. “African Knowledge Production and History in the Making“. Collateral Benefits: Voices of African Womxn Perspective Paper II
Nwakanma, Adaugo Pamela and Hammouri-Davis, Azmera. 2020. “Whose Lives Really Matter“. Voyages Africana Journal
Nwakanma, Adaugo Pamela. 2019. “Breaking Barriers and Igniting Imagination: Lessons from Women Technology Empowerment Center’s ‘She Creates’ Summer Camp“. Women Technology Empowerment Center Blog Report
Nwakanma, Adaugo Pamela. 2018. “Nke Ano” Kuumba Voices p.6
Nwakanma, Adaugo Pamela. 2017. “Ihunanya” and Ephemeral Moments; Lasting Impressions: A Tribute to Dr. S. Allen Counter” Kuumba Voices
Under Review
“Africana Infrapolitics: Reflections from Nigeria and Colombia” in Black Feminisms Beyond Borders: Cultivating Knowledge, Solidarity and Liberation
Rethinking Women’s Economic Power Beyond “Hard Work”: Wealth Insights from Fieldwork
in Rwanda and Nigeria
Book Project in Progress: Women Labor, Men Lead: The Gendered Paradox of Power and Leadership
My book project investigates the intersection of women’s empowerment in business and politics. More specifically, I examine the role of social power in moderating the relationship between economic and political power among people working across diverse sectors of the Nigerian economy. Using a mix of sophisticated quantitative and qualitative approaches, as well as African feminist insights, the work is grounded in Africa’s largest economy, but builds on empirical data from across the continent to develop an innovative theory of political empowerment. To achieve this objective, the book project analyzes observational and experimental data from surveys, interviews, and ethnographic fieldwork. Ultimately, this research contributes substantively to our understanding of the political economy of gender and development in Africa and beyond by critically interrogating the relationship between the economic, the social, and the political in the world’s largest Black economy.
The book project is based on dissertation research that won the Lagos Studies Association Best Doctoral Thesis Award (2023) and the Harvard Government Department Best Dissertation on a Topic of Gender & Politics (2022).