Urban Specters

Sarah Mayorga is associate professor of sociology at Brandeis University and is the author of Behind the White Picket Fence: Power and Privilege in a Multiethnic Neighborhood.

For more information about Sarah Mayorga, visit the Author Page.

“A fascinating examination of both race relations and class dynamics in a changing city. [Mayorga’s] book makes a significant contribution to the study of both critical racial/ethnic studies and urban sociology, and perhaps more importantly to the theoretical underpinnings of these two traditions.”—Ethnic and Racial Studies

“Urban Specters intimately compares and contrasts two local neighborhoods — Riverside and Carthage — and their residents while exploring the topic of racial capitalism. . . . Mayorga uncovers everyday manifestations of racial capitalism through the eyes of Cincinnati residents.”—Cincinnati CityBeat

“An in-depth analysis of material life within two neighborhoods in Cincinnati. . . . Urban Specters provides hope in interpersonal acts of resilience and a growing self-awareness made possible by public scholarship that looks at a different world.”—The Metropole

“A refreshing contribution to urban scholarship. . . . Urban Specters illuminates the ways racial capitalist dynamics haunt the everyday lived experiences of people and, most importantly, the stories people tell. . . . [A] valuable and generative resource for scholars of race, urban inequality, and political economy.”—Social Forces

"The book uses rich detail from the ground to show how racial capitalism is at work in everyday community life. It also shows the reader how to identify the seeds of abolitionist practices that can be nurtured, demonstrating that abolitionism is not in a different world but rather is present right where racial capitalism dominates and does the most harm.”—Sociology of Race and Ethnicity

"Insightful in the most sorrowful of ways. Mayorga pushes us to listen hard to hear not only how racial capitalism infects our relations with each other and keeps us apart, but also how the demons of racial capitalism take over our best selves, creeping into how and where we care and who we prop up. To build a new world we must fully encounter the old one, in all its ugliness and disappointment. This work takes us a step closer."—Gargi Bhattacharyya, University of East London