Jamaican-born scholar Lahoma Thomas has transformed early experiences of listening to women’s stories into a celebrated academic career. Now a professor in Toronto Metropolitan University’s Department of Criminology, Thomas has been named the 2025 Early Career Researcher First Book Prize winner by Oxford University Press for her forthcoming book on Black women’s political life in Jamaica. She is the sole Canadian to receive the honor this year.
The award recognizes scholars who are developing their first academic book within six years of completing a PhD or starting their first faculty position.
Her forthcoming book, Black Women and the Politics of Respect in Jamaica: “Seeing from Da Yaad”, due in 2027, examines how women in Kingston’s inner-city communities navigate political authority, state power, and dignity. Thomas says winning the prize affirms the importance of understanding Black political life not only through formal institutions but also through everyday relationships and practices that are often overlooked.
“I have familial ties to the Caribbean, and I have long understood the region as a critical and radical intellectual space,” Thomas told Toronto Met Today. “This work listens to how people themselves understand political life.”
Thomas’ research was shaped by a 2010 protest in Kingston, when thousands of women dressed in white marched against the extradition of gang leader Christopher “Dudus” Coke to the U.S. While conventional political science framed community support for criminal organizations as coercion or material gain, Thomas’ interviews revealed a more nuanced reality: women’s political decisions were often guided by survival and dignity, reflecting their judgments about legitimate authority in communities shaped by colonial history, racialized violence, and uneven state power.
“This project is a refusal of narratives that reduce Black communities to sites of crime,” Thomas said. “It centers voices that are often ignored, showing how people themselves interpret political life.”
Before entering academia, Thomas worked as a social worker supporting survivors of sexual violence and conducted research on gender-based violence in post-conflict Northern Uganda. Her longstanding focus has been on how women create possibilities for survival and dignity under difficult circumstances.
Thomas credits mentors—including the late political scientist Lee Ann Fujii, political theorist Joseph Carens, and Caribbean scholar Alissa Trotz—for encouraging her to trust her voice and pursue questions that challenge conventional approaches. At TMU, she hopes to mentor students in the same spirit.
With her book’s 2027 publication approaching, Thomas aims to spark broader conversations about whose perspectives shape our understanding of political life and to highlight the Caribbean as a vibrant site of political thought.
“I hope it encourages people to listen more closely to how individuals themselves understand authority, dignity, and survival,” she said.
