PhD 2021
Dissertation Title: Cultivating Catholicism: Gender, Vocation, and Missionization in Colonial Senegal
Johanna A. Pacyga is an historical anthropologist and archaeologist in the Department of Anthropology. Her doctoral research is based in Senegal, where she investigates the active roles of West African and French women in Catholic missionization during the colonial period. In addition to her expertise working in Senegal, Johanna has excavated sites in the U.S., Canada, Dominica, and Spain. Beyond her overarching interest in the lives and agency of women and girls in the colonial context, her research and teaching touch on human/plant relationships, historical ecology, the intersections of gender and religion, inequality, gendered education and community building, and the power dynamics of knowledge production and mainstream narratives.
