Call for Papers: Thematic Section on Muslim Communities and Conversion to Islam in Latin America

Islam and Muslim communities continue to grow in Latin America – and the broader Latinx Americas. Thus, sustained academic attention and research is necessary to account for the changeability and lived realities of these communities. This dossier invites original papers, communications, news and reports, as well as book reviews that help scholars rethink the interests of believers, identity and community formation, as well as the consolidation and growth of Muslim communities, with a particular focus on conversion as a sociocultural process. Other topics of interest include gender, corporeality, the institutionalization of Islam, religious infrastructures, education, dawah, philanthropy, and the entanglements and relationship of communities to the global umma, among others. The dossier’s objective is to provide a regional overview of how conversion to Islam is lived and experienced as well as elucidate how these processes feed the growth of Islam in Latin America, the wider Americas, and across the landscapes of global Islam.

Submissions should be in English and made through the IJLAR portal by January 31, 2026.

Inquiries of interest, questions about the call or comments on the collection should be directed to the special issue editor Ruth Jatziri García Linares (jatziriantropologia@politicas.unam.mx) or to the collection editor Ken Chitwood (kenneth.chitwood@uni-bayreuth.de).