Zophia Edwards, assistant professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, recently received the Distinguished Scholarly Book Award from the American Sociological Association (ASA) for her book Fueling Development: How Black Radical Trade Unionism Transformed Trinidad and Tobago (Duke University Press, 2025).
The book draws on archival data, historical analysis, and Black radical political economic thought to trace Trinidad and Tobago’s success to a specific form of working-class mobilization Dr. Edwards calls “liberation unionism.” According to the ASA award committee, Fueling Development “brilliantly demonstrates how even in the midst of colonial and racial domination, working people and their agency still matter.”
Before joining the Johns Hopkins faculty, Dr. Edwards was an assistant professor of sociology and director of the Black studies program at Providence College in Rhode Island. Dr. Edwards’ research examines the impacts of colonialism and multiracial labor movements on state formation and human development in the Global South, with a particular focus on resource-rich countries. In addition to Fueling Development, Dr. Edwards is the author of Racism, Capitalism, and the COVID-19 Pandemic (Daraja Press, 2021).
Dr. Edwards is an alumna of Williams College in Massachusetts, where she majored in astrophysics. She holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Boston University.