Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Sociology
University of California, Davis
I’m a sociologist researching race, statecraft, and classification in postcolonial Africa.
Raised in Zambia, my research explores how African states inherited and transformed colonial systems of racial and ethnic classification. I draw on archival data, census reports, interviews, and oral histories from Zambia and Zimbabwe to examine how post-colonial statecraft, international statistical norms, and domestic politics reshaped the boundaries of race and belonging.
This project is supported by the 2025 American Sociological Association Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant (ASA DDRIG) and the 2025–26 UC Davis Provost’s Dissertation Year Fellowship in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences.
Email: jzylu@ucdavis.edu
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