Lead Faculty Advisor
mansson@uwm.edu
Faculty Webpage
Anna Mansson McGinty is an Associate Professor of Geography and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She received her Ph.D. at Lund University, Sweden. Her research centers on Muslim identities and geographies, Islamic feminisms, and minority politics and representations in the United States. She is trained in ethnographic research methodologies, drawing on phenomenological and feminist approaches in understanding the complexities of personal and social worlds.
Her first book, Becoming Muslim: Western Women’s Conversions to Islam (Palgrave, 2006), is an ethnographic study on Swedish and American women who have converted to Islam with a focus on their identity formation and personal life-story and understanding of Islam. She is the author of many journal articles on Muslim women, gendered activism, and veiling, as well as Muslim youth in Milwaukee and lived Islam. She is part of the extensive, decade-long community collaboration, the Muslim Milwaukee Project, together with colleagues Caroline Seymour-Jorn and Kristin Sziarto, as well as Muslim leaders, community members and artists. This project examines the dynamics and diversity of Muslim communities and lives in Milwaukee and confronts anti-Muslim racism. In another study, Competing Representations of Muslim Identities in the United States: Citizenship, Gender, and Religion,she examines discourses of Muslim American identities and politics in relationship to citizenship, race, and gender.
Anna has twice been a C21 fellow (2012/13 and 2023/24) and the Muslim Milwaukee Project is one of the C21 Collaboratories.