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Author: Sanyu A. Mojola

A Library and Labyrinth Collaboration

Sociologist Sanyu Mojola, joined in conversation by Tukufu Zuberi and Waverly Duck, presents her new book, "Death by Design: Producing Racial Health Inequality in the Shadow of the Capitol."

About the book (from the publisher):

Washington, DC, has the nation's largest racial life expectancy gap, and it has experienced many of the nation's worst epidemics, including maternal and infant mortality, homicide, heroin overdoses, and HIV/AIDS. These epidemics have disproportionately affected African Americans. Why and how does racial health inequality exist and persist? Starting from the city's founding in the late 1700s and drawing on a range of sources—including archival material, life history interviews, and census, vital statistics, and disease surveillance data—this book illustrates how the physical, social, and policy design of the city contributes to the production and reproduction of disproportionate Black death.

In Conversation: 

Sanyu A. Mojola is Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs and the Maurice P. During Professor of Demographic Studies. Her mixed methods research examines how societies produce health and illness, with a particular focus on the HIV/AIDS pandemic as it unfolds in various settings such as Kenya, South Africa and the US. She has investigated how social dynamics within schools, communities, labor markets, cities and eco-systems can lead to health inequality. She is especially interested in how the life course, gender, race/ethnicity and socio-economic status shape health outcomes. Her first book, "Love, Money and HIV: Becoming a Modern African Woman in the Age of AIDS" (University of California Press, 2014) examining the HIV pandemic among young African women, with a focus on Kenya, won multiple awards including the 2016 Distinguished Scholarly Book Award (Best Book of the Year) from the American Sociological Association. Her second book, “Death by Design: Producing Racial Health Inequality in the Shadow of the Capitol” (University of California Press, 2025), focuses on Washington D.C, US and examines why the capital city has the largest racial life expectancy gap in the nation. Starting from the city's founding  in 1790 until 2022, it draws on archival and contemporary longitudinal quantitative and qualitative data, including newspaper archives, census, vital statistics, maps, disease surveillance, and crime data, as well as life history and key informant interviews. She has also been Principal Investigator of an NIH funded project called HIV after 40 in rural South Africa: Aging in the Context of an HIV/AIDS epidemic. Her team investigated the causes and consequences of the HIV epidemic among middle-aged and older adults as they aged in rural post-apartheid South Africa. The project is the subject of her third book, in progress along with the team, tentatively titled "Nowadays Diseases: Aging Through Social Change in Rural Post-Apartheid South Africa." Her work has also appeared in journals such as the American Journal of Sociology, Gender and Society, Demography, Social Science and Medicine and Journal of Marriage and Family. She has served on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Sociology, the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, and Studies in Family Planning, and is currently serving on the editorial boards of the American Sociological Review and Population and Development Review.

Dr. Tukufu Zuberi is the Lasry Family Professor of Race Relations, and Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He is dedicated to bringing a fresh view of culture and society to the public through various platforms such as guest lecturing at universities, television programs, and interactive social media. Currently, he works on human rights initiatives by participating in public speaking engagements, international collaborations with transnational organizations, and individuals dedicated to human equality. Dr. Zuberi’s research focuses on Race, African and African Diaspora populations. He has been a visiting professor at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda and the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. He currently serves as the Chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. He has also served as the Chair of the Graduate Group in Demography, the Director of the African Studies Program, and the Director of the Afro-American Studies Program. In 2002, he became the founding Director of the Center for Africana Studies, and he has also served as the Faculty Associate Director of the Center for Africana Studies.

Waverly Duck is an urban ethnographer and the North Hall Chair Endowed Professor of Sociology. He is the author of "No Way Out: Precarious Living in the Shadow of Poverty and Drug Dealing" (University of Chicago Press, 2015), a finalist for the Society for the Study of Social Problems 2016 C. Wright Mills Book Award. His second book on unconscious racism, "Tacit Racism," co-authored with Anne Rawls (also with the University of Chicago Press), was the 2021 winner of the Charles Horton Cooley Book Award from the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction and the 2022 Book Award winner for the North Central Sociological Association. He also co-authored and curated a new book with Anne Rawls and Kevin Whitehead, titled "Black Lives Matter: Ethnomethodological and Conversation Analytic Studies of Race and Systemic Racism in Everyday Interaction" (Taylor and Francis, 2020). Like his earlier work, his current research investigates the challenges faced by socially marginal groups. However, his work is more directly concerned with the interaction order of marginalized communities and how participants identify problems and what they think are viable solutions. 

Presented in partnership with Labyrinth Books and with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this programming do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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