The Global Landscapes of Muslim Lives: Latin American and Caribbean Intersections

The Global Landscapes of Muslim Lives: Latin American and Caribbean Intersections examines the lives, histories, and linkages of Muslims in Latin America, the Caribbean, and their diasporas, exploring how their experiences reflect broader possibilities for understanding religion and its global futures. By focusing on the landscapes and infrastructures that connect local practices to transnational networks—migration routes, digital technologies, religious institutions, halal economies, philanthropic flows, and ecological, urban, and social environments—the project investigates how Muslims navigate and reimagine the conditions of belonging, identity, and faith. The following research objectives provide clarity and direction in achieving this overarching aim: To provide a comprehensive, multi-sited exploration of Muslim lives across Latin America, the Caribbean, and their diasporas. To investigate the dynamic relationship between local lives and global landscapes of exchange (ethnoscapes, mediascapes, ideoscapes, financescapes), with attention to the infrastructures and networks that shape these interactions. To survey and document diverse Muslim experiences through the collection of 75–100 semi-structured interviews and/or life histories with interlocutors across the region. To compare and analyze the lived experiences of Muslims across diverse geographic, communal, and socio-economic contexts, identifying patterns, divergences, and co-constitutive connections. To produce 15–20 detailed profiles of Muslim life in Latin America, the Caribbean, and their diasporas across the Americas and the Atlantic World (based on ethnographic composites or individual interlocutors), which will serve as the foundation for both scholarly and public-facing publications. To contribute to the study of Islam and Muslim communities in Latin America and the Caribbean through post-doctoral research opportunities, the organization of colloquia, and collaborations with the Latin America and Caribbean Islamic Studies Association (LACISA). To share results with scholarly and wider publics through: two academic gatherings (colloquia) co-sponsored by participating institutions and LACISA, public-outreach pieces in accessible venues (e.g., The Conversation, New Lines Magazine, The Revealer), the creation of an interactive “Americas Muslims Map” using ArcGIS StoryMaps or StoryMap JS, and the production of an edited volume or special journal issue (based on colloquia) and a co-authored monograph as the flagship project publication. Ultimately, this project seeks to demonstrate that the story of Islam today is not defined by a single center, tradition, or geography, but by the flows, connections, and creative adaptations that make Muslim lifeworlds across the Atlantic World simultaneously local, transnational, and global.