Zophia Edwards
Biographic Data
| ID | 194517 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Zophia Edwards |
| GIVEN NAMES | Zophia |
| FAMILY NAME | Edwards |
| SIGNATURE | EDWARDS Z |
| AFFILIATIONS | Providence College |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6856-066X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 30 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 13 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
W. E. B. Du Bois on the Logics of Settler Colonialism
Many scholars have noted that while Du Bois clearly analyzed, theorized, and critiqued racialized labor exploitation, he did not have a framework for understanding settler colonialism. This paper systematically examines Du Bois's corpus of works and adds nuance to this claim. The paper argues that Du Bois did, in fact, theorize settler‐colonial dynamics as evidenced by his work on Kenya and South Africa, but he had a narrow, singular conceptualiz…
Colonial states and passive revolutions: The case of Trinidad and Tobago
This paper examines decolonization in Trinidad and Tobago, focusing on how middle-class-led political parties – primarily divided along African and Indian lines – displaced the labor movement and assumed control of the post-colonial state. The Gramscian concept of passive revolution highlights how middle-class elites demobilize labor and preserve racialized capitalist relations and foreign economic dominance. Drawing on studies of the role of col…
Power to the People!”: The Catalytic Role of the Black Power Movement in Trinidad and Tobago’s Industrialization
Recent developmental state research highlights state-society configurations and contentious politics in shaping industrialization. Still, much of this work focuses on East Asia and tends to sidestep racialized labor exploitation, imperialism, and uneven incorporation into the global capitalist system through the trans-Atlantic slave trade and colonialism as important drivers. Through an historical analysis of Trinidad and Tobago, this paper exami…
Beyond Intersectionality: A Political Economy Approach to the Intersections of Race, Class, Gender, and Nation
Reframing the classics
A number of recent works in sociology call for the decolonization of the discipline. Colonialism and Modern Social Theory adds a critical intervention to this recent body of work by deconstructing the theories that have been canonized in North American and European social theory, and meticulously laying out the systematic erasure of colonialism and imperialism from their concepts and analytical categories. This review focuses on the introductory …
Racial Capitalism and Covid-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought into sharp relief the deep structural problems affecting nonwhite racialized workers in the core and periphery. Yet, many social scientific analyses of the global political economy, at least in the pre-COVID era, are race neutral or willfully indifferent to the persistent racial pattern of global inequalities. Even if they do address legacies of colonialism, they ignore the ongoing racial logics of oppression emb…
Postcolonial sociology as a remedy for global diffusion theory
The dominant theoretical approaches that aim to explain the origins and subsequent global diffusion of modern norms, practices, and institutions have reached an impasse. World polity theory and 'coercion' perspectives describe a process in which norms originate in the Global North and spread to the rest of the world. For the former, diffusion occurs via the willful imitation of shared values; for the latter, it occurs due to economic/political pr…
The Forces of Imperialism: Internalist and Global Explanations of the Anglo-European Empires, 1750-1960
The authors explain the imperial expansion of the Anglo-European states from the 18th century to the 20th century using an original pooled time series database on rates of colonization by the Western powers. They employ a negative binomial regression that tests different theories, from classical internalist theories that emphasize domestic or national-level factors, to more global theories that explain formal imperialism by reference to the wider…
No Colonial Working Class, No Post-Colonial Development: A Comparative-Historical Analysis of Two Oil-Rich Countries
Labor, Agency, and State-building in Trinidad and Tobago: Toward a Postcolonial Sociological Approach to Development
Existing development theories predict that factors such as natural resource wealth and the legacies of European colonizers inhibit development. However, the case of Trinidad and Tobago challenges these theories, as a resource-rich former colony that has achieved high levels of development. This article examines what accounts for Trinidad and Tobago's development trajectory. Advancing a novel analytical approach - a postcolonial sociological appro…
Boon or bane: Examining divergent development outcomes among oil- and mineral-dependent countries in the Global South
Under neoliberal conditions that privilege foreign investors and call for the retreat of the state, some oil- and mineral-dependent countries in the Global South outperform others. To investigate what accounts for this variation in economic development among these countries, this study tests hypotheses derived from resource curse and dependency/world systems literatures using a dataset of 36 oil- and mineral-dependent countries in the Global Sout…
Economic Development
Studies in economic development aim to discover how societies pursue the improvement of their citizens' quality of life. This entry reviews the main theoretical perspectives, paradigms, and concepts that aim to describe and explain economic development. These include theories of modernization, dependency, world systems, feminist theory, developmental state, and institutionalism. Special attention is also paid to the statistical measures of develo…
CLR James: The Black Jacobin's Sociology : Interview with Professor Gordon Rohlehr of the University of the West Indies, June 15th, 2007
(2007). CLR James: The Black Jacobin's Sociology: Interview with Professor Gordon Rohlehr of the University of the West Indies, June 15th, 2007. The Black Scholar: Vol. 37, Black Social Agenda, pp. 42-49
Postcolonial sociology as a remedy for global diffusion theory
The dominant theoretical approaches that aim to explain the origins and subsequent global diffusion of modern norms, practices, and institutions have reached an impasse. World polity theory and 'coercion' perspectives describe a process in which norms originate in the Global North and spread to the rest of the world. For the former, diffusion occurs via the willful imitation of shared values; for the latter, it occurs due to economic/political pr…
Labor, Agency, and State-building in Trinidad and Tobago: Toward a Postcolonial Sociological Approach to Development
Existing development theories predict that factors such as natural resource wealth and the legacies of European colonizers inhibit development. However, the case of Trinidad and Tobago challenges these theories, as a resource-rich former colony that has achieved high levels of development. This article examines what accounts for Trinidad and Tobago's development trajectory. Advancing a novel analytical approach - a postcolonial sociological appro…
Racial Capitalism and Covid-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought into sharp relief the deep structural problems affecting nonwhite racialized workers in the core and periphery. Yet, many social scientific analyses of the global political economy, at least in the pre-COVID era, are race neutral or willfully indifferent to the persistent racial pattern of global inequalities. Even if they do address legacies of colonialism, they ignore the ongoing racial logics of oppression emb…
Boon or bane: Examining divergent development outcomes among oil- and mineral-dependent countries in the Global South
Under neoliberal conditions that privilege foreign investors and call for the retreat of the state, some oil- and mineral-dependent countries in the Global South outperform others. To investigate what accounts for this variation in economic development among these countries, this study tests hypotheses derived from resource curse and dependency/world systems literatures using a dataset of 36 oil- and mineral-dependent countries in the Global Sout…
The Forces of Imperialism: Internalist and Global Explanations of the Anglo-European Empires, 1750-1960
The authors explain the imperial expansion of the Anglo-European states from the 18th century to the 20th century using an original pooled time series database on rates of colonization by the Western powers. They employ a negative binomial regression that tests different theories, from classical internalist theories that emphasize domestic or national-level factors, to more global theories that explain formal imperialism by reference to the wider…
No Colonial Working Class, No Post-Colonial Development: A Comparative-Historical Analysis of Two Oil-Rich Countries
Power to the People!”: The Catalytic Role of the Black Power Movement in Trinidad and Tobago’s Industrialization
Recent developmental state research highlights state-society configurations and contentious politics in shaping industrialization. Still, much of this work focuses on East Asia and tends to sidestep racialized labor exploitation, imperialism, and uneven incorporation into the global capitalist system through the trans-Atlantic slave trade and colonialism as important drivers. Through an historical analysis of Trinidad and Tobago, this paper exami…
CLR James: The Black Jacobin's Sociology : Interview with Professor Gordon Rohlehr of the University of the West Indies, June 15th, 2007
(2007). CLR James: The Black Jacobin's Sociology: Interview with Professor Gordon Rohlehr of the University of the West Indies, June 15th, 2007. The Black Scholar: Vol. 37, Black Social Agenda, pp. 42-49
Economic Development
Studies in economic development aim to discover how societies pursue the improvement of their citizens' quality of life. This entry reviews the main theoretical perspectives, paradigms, and concepts that aim to describe and explain economic development. These include theories of modernization, dependency, world systems, feminist theory, developmental state, and institutionalism. Special attention is also paid to the statistical measures of develo…
Boon or bane: Examining divergent development outcomes among oil- and mineral-dependent countries in the Global South
Under neoliberal conditions that privilege foreign investors and call for the retreat of the state, some oil- and mineral-dependent countries in the Global South outperform others. To investigate what accounts for this variation in economic development among these countries, this study tests hypotheses derived from resource curse and dependency/world systems literatures using a dataset of 36 oil- and mineral-dependent countries in the Global Sout…
No Colonial Working Class, No Post-Colonial Development: A Comparative-Historical Analysis of Two Oil-Rich Countries
Labor, Agency, and State-building in Trinidad and Tobago: Toward a Postcolonial Sociological Approach to Development
Existing development theories predict that factors such as natural resource wealth and the legacies of European colonizers inhibit development. However, the case of Trinidad and Tobago challenges these theories, as a resource-rich former colony that has achieved high levels of development. This article examines what accounts for Trinidad and Tobago's development trajectory. Advancing a novel analytical approach - a postcolonial sociological appro…
The Forces of Imperialism: Internalist and Global Explanations of the Anglo-European Empires, 1750-1960
The authors explain the imperial expansion of the Anglo-European states from the 18th century to the 20th century using an original pooled time series database on rates of colonization by the Western powers. They employ a negative binomial regression that tests different theories, from classical internalist theories that emphasize domestic or national-level factors, to more global theories that explain formal imperialism by reference to the wider…
Postcolonial sociology as a remedy for global diffusion theory
The dominant theoretical approaches that aim to explain the origins and subsequent global diffusion of modern norms, practices, and institutions have reached an impasse. World polity theory and 'coercion' perspectives describe a process in which norms originate in the Global North and spread to the rest of the world. For the former, diffusion occurs via the willful imitation of shared values; for the latter, it occurs due to economic/political pr…
Racial Capitalism and Covid-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought into sharp relief the deep structural problems affecting nonwhite racialized workers in the core and periphery. Yet, many social scientific analyses of the global political economy, at least in the pre-COVID era, are race neutral or willfully indifferent to the persistent racial pattern of global inequalities. Even if they do address legacies of colonialism, they ignore the ongoing racial logics of oppression emb…
Reframing the classics
A number of recent works in sociology call for the decolonization of the discipline. Colonialism and Modern Social Theory adds a critical intervention to this recent body of work by deconstructing the theories that have been canonized in North American and European social theory, and meticulously laying out the systematic erasure of colonialism and imperialism from their concepts and analytical categories. This review focuses on the introductory …
Power to the People!”: The Catalytic Role of the Black Power Movement in Trinidad and Tobago’s Industrialization
Recent developmental state research highlights state-society configurations and contentious politics in shaping industrialization. Still, much of this work focuses on East Asia and tends to sidestep racialized labor exploitation, imperialism, and uneven incorporation into the global capitalist system through the trans-Atlantic slave trade and colonialism as important drivers. Through an historical analysis of Trinidad and Tobago, this paper exami…
Beyond Intersectionality: A Political Economy Approach to the Intersections of Race, Class, Gender, and Nation
Colonial states and passive revolutions: The case of Trinidad and Tobago
This paper examines decolonization in Trinidad and Tobago, focusing on how middle-class-led political parties – primarily divided along African and Indian lines – displaced the labor movement and assumed control of the post-colonial state. The Gramscian concept of passive revolution highlights how middle-class elites demobilize labor and preserve racialized capitalist relations and foreign economic dominance. Drawing on studies of the role of col…
W. E. B. Du Bois on the Logics of Settler Colonialism
Many scholars have noted that while Du Bois clearly analyzed, theorized, and critiqued racialized labor exploitation, he did not have a framework for understanding settler colonialism. This paper systematically examines Du Bois's corpus of works and adds nuance to this claim. The paper argues that Du Bois did, in fact, theorize settler‐colonial dynamics as evidenced by his work on Kenya and South Africa, but he had a narrow, singular conceptualiz…
Political science (11 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Colonialism (8 works) · Economics (7 works) · Politics (7 works) · Law (5 works) · Caribbean history, culture, and politics (4 works) · Development economics (4 works) · Epistemology (4 works) · Political economy (4 works)