Alicia Houser, a University of Kansas doctoral candidate studying history, has received an award that will allow her to spend a year abroad researching how women have transformed the city of Moshi, Tanzania.
Houser’s Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Award includes a grant of $24,400 from the U.S. Department of Education to travel to Africa and study how Tanzanian women in small urban areas have restructured their lives and landscapes since colonization, according to a Monday news release from KU.
“Houser will spend all of 2025 in Tanzania to explore how women have transformed the town of Moshi from a place built to serve colonial interests to an African urban center of commerce and transportation,” according to the release.
Houser’s dissertation examines how women across different economic spectrums have constructed their lives and city since independence from British rule in 1961, according to the release.
“I would not be able to do justice to my research topic without funding like the Fulbright-Hays that allows me to live in Tanzania long term to build and maintain relationships with the people who join my research,” Houser said in the release.
Elizabeth MacGonagle, associate professor of history and African & African-American studies and Houser’s adviser, said the evidence Houser plans to gather from documents, ethnography and oral histories will allow her to write an influential social history that “reflects the lives of people, especially African women, who have not been well-represented in history,” according to the release.
“Her work will help us to understand better how a range of women have drawn on their resiliency to thrive in a challenging urban environment,” MacGonagle said.
Houser received a master’s degree in public and international affairs from the University of Pittsburgh and bachelor’s degrees in international relations and African studies from Austin College, according to the release. In Tanzania, she’ll be affiliated with the University of Dar es Salaam.
About 100 fellows per year earn Fulbright-Hays awards, which allow recipients to engage in full-time dissertation research abroad.
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