Etienne van de Walle is a professor of demography and a member of the Population Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania. He coedited Mortality and Society in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Elisha P. Renne is an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology and Center for Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan and author of Cloth That Does Not Die: The Meaning of Cloth in Bunu Social Life.