Simukai Chigudu wins 2021 APSA-IPSA Theodore J Lowi First Book Award
Congratulations to Simukai Chigudu, who has won the 2021 Theodore J Lowi First Book Award for his book, The Political Life of an Epidemic: Cholera, Crisis and Citizenship in Zimbabwe.
The award recognises the author of a first book in any field of political science that exemplifies qualities of broad ambition, high originality, and intellectual daring, showing promise of having a substantive impact on the overall discipline. It is made by the American Political Science Association (APSA) and the International Political Science Association (IPSA).
The Political Life of an Epidemic, which was published by Cambridge University Press in 2020, examines the social and political causes and consequences of Zimbabwe’s catastrophic cholera outbreak in 2008/09, the worst in African history. The book is a devastating account of an epidemic and a meditation on the political economy of state transformation in Africa, the shortcomings of international humanitarian aid, and the struggles for substantive citizenship in Zimbabwe.
The prize will be awarded at the 2021 APSA Annual Meeting in Seattle later this year.
Simukai Chigudu is Associate Professor of African Politics at ODID.