Department of Sociology

Sarah Mayorga

Department Chair of Sociology

Professor of Sociology

Sarah Mayorga joined Brandeis in 2020, having previously taught at the University of Cincinnati and University of Massachusetts Boston. She teaches courses in the sociology of race and racism, urban sociology, inequalities in the media, and Latinx sociology. Her research investigates questions of racism and power, focusing on multiracial neighborhoods and relations of racial capitalism.

Mayorga's first book, "Behind the White Picket Fence: Power and Privilege in a Multiethnic Neighborhood" (University of North Carolina Press, 2014), won the 2015 American Sociological Association Latino/a Sociology Section’s Distinguished Contribution to Research Book Award. Mayorga conducted in-depth interviews, participant observation, and a household survey to illustrate how spatial proximity does not necessarily translate to racial equity in a multiracial neighborhood. She found that white residents enacted norms of social control and social distancing towards their Black and Latinx neighbors despite expressing positive racial attitudes and praising the neighborhood’s diversity.

Mayorga's second book, Urban Specters: The Everyday Harms of Racial Capitalism (UNC Press, 2023), analyzes the experiences of residents from two working-class Cincinnati, Ohio neighborhoods to understand how relations of racial capitalism (e.g., underdevelopment, private property, and policing) shape how residents make sense of their neighborhood, how they interact with neighbors, and the practices of neighborhood institutions, such as neighborhood associations and local police.

Mayorga’s most recent book, A Good Reputation: How Residents Fight for an American Barrio (Chicago, 2024), was co-authored with sociologist Elizabeth Korver-Glenn. In this book, they study the predominantly Latinx Northside neighborhood in Houston to understand why gentrification doesn’t always happen and how neighborhood reputation and conflict can be fruitful sites for understanding non-linear paths of neighborhood development.

Mayorga has also published several articles on diversity ideology, the role of dogs in maintaining racial boundaries in multiracial neighborhoods, whiteness as a social determinant of health, and the particularities of conducting research in multiethnic settings. Her current research project, alongside Sociology Department colleagues Sara Shostak and Rachel McKane, is an oral history project on urban flooding in Waltham, MA, with the aim of supporting climate resiliency in the city. This research is funded by MassHumanities.

Education

• PhD, Duke University