Department of Communication Arts
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Sara McKinnon

Rhetoric, Politics, and Culture

Professor

she/her/hers

 

Professor Sara McKinnon

Areas of Expertise

  • U.S. Refugee & Immigration Law and Policy
  • Migration Dynamics and Policy in Latin America
  • Foreign Policy in Latin America
  • International & Human Rights Law in the Americas
  • Transnational Rhetoric
  • Qualitative & Field Based Methods

Biography

McKinnon is Professor of Rhetoric, Politics & Culture in the Department of Communication Arts, and Faculty Director of Latin American, Caribbean & Iberian Studies. She co-chairs UW-Madison’s Human Rights Program and has affiliations in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies and Chican@ & Latin@ Studies.

Her current research dynamics of human migration in Latin American and examines foreign policy relations and rhetorics in a transnational era, considering as case studies collaborations between the United States, Mexico, and Central American countries since the 1980s to address regional issues such as drug trafficking, corruption, and violence. She also leads a collaborative project to expand the legal information about US immigration and refugee programs and legal counsel available to migrants throughout Latin America as they consider safe options for movement and resettlement. You can find more information about this project at https://migrationamericas.commarts.wisc.edu/

McKinnon has published three books. Gendered Asylum: Race and Violence in U.S. Law and Politics (University of Illinois Press, 2016), examines the gender discourse that emerged in U.S. immigration and refugee law between the 1980 Refugee Act and 2014. In this project she analyzed a range of gender and sexuality-related political asylum cases against public discourse concerning globalization, women’s rights as human rights, displacement, migration, and sexual violence. The book identifies what gender means in U.S. asylum law and it examines the ways gender and gendered political subjects as serve U.S. national and international interests. Text + Field: Innovations in Rhetorical Method (Penn State University Press, 2016) is a co-edited collection that explores a range of approaches for using ethnographic and field-based methods in doing rhetorical research, and the co-edited collection, Foreign Policy Rhetorics in the Global Era: Concepts and Case Studies with Michigan State University Press, considers what foreign policy relations and rhetoric mean in a transnational era.

Professor McKinnon regularly teaches undergraduate and graduate classes in communication and human behavior, migration and refugee studies, gender and communication, intercultural communication, and conflict studies, and qualitative and text-based research methods.

Education

  • Ph.D. Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, 2008
  • M.A. Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, 2005
  • B.A., Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan, 2001

Honors/Awards

  • Reilly-Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment Seed Grant, “Latine Comic Collective: A Project of Belonging, Cultural Expression & Literacy for Middle & High School Students,” 2025-2026
  • Research Forward Grant, “Safe Passage through the Darién Gap” 2023-2025
  • Borghesi-Mellon Workshop “Migrant Media & Artivism” 2021-2022
  • Vilas Associates Award, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education, 2020-2022.
  • Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award. University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2019.
  • Bonnie Ritter Book Award for Gendered Asylum: Race and Violence in US Law and Politics, Feminist and Women’s Studies Division of the National Communication Association, 2017
  • Undergraduate Mentor Award, University of Wisconsin-Madison, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, 2015

Selected Articles

  • 2024. Foreign policy collaborations to manage migration in the Americas. Wisconsin International Law Journal, 41, 411-441. https://wilj.law.wisc.edu/issues-archive/volume-41-issues-archive/volume-41-issue-3/
  • 2021. “Feminicidio in the International Courts: Agency and responsibility in the making of justice.” Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 24, 413-445. https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/msup/rpa/article-abstract/24/3/413/291756/Feminicidio-in-the-International-Courts-Agency-and
  • 2016. “Necropolitical voices and bodies in the rhetorical reception of Iranian women’s asylum claims.” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 13, 1-17, http://tinyurl.com/j5no8g8.
  • 2016. “Gender violence as global phenomenon: Refugees, genital surgeries, and neocolonial projects of the United States.” Cultural Studies <-> Critical Methodologies, 16, 414-426, http://tinyurl.com/zcm2pny.
  • 2016. “US gender- and sexuality-related asylum law: The politics of transgender asylum.” Communication and the Public, 1, 245-250, http://tinyurl.com/hax7kqn.
  • 2016. “Rhetoric and ethics revisited: What happens when rhetorical scholars go into the field.” Cultural Studies <-> Critical Methodologies, 17.
  • 2015. “School Experiences of Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Students in Wisconsin.”, http://tinyurl.com/lqfftft.
  • 2011. “Positioned In/By the State: Incorporation, Exclusion, and Appropriation of Women’s Gender-Based Claims to Political Asylum in the United States.” Quarterly Journal of Speech, (97): 178-200, http://tinyurl.com/8hg2oeo.
  • 2010. “Excavating Gender in Women’s Early Claims to Political Asylum in the United States.” Women’s Studies in Communication, (33): 79-95, http://tinyurl.com/97rwf69.
  • 2009. “Citizenship and the Performance of Credibility: Audiencing Gender-Based Asylum Seekers in U.S. Immigration Courts.” Text & Performance Quarterly, (29): 205-221, http://tinyurl.com/9v9e27y.
  • 2009. “‘Bringing New Hope and New Life’: The Rhetoric of Faith Based Refugee Resettlement Agencies.” Howard Journal of Communications, (20): 313-332, http://tinyurl.com/9eb5sqc.
  • 2008. “Unsettling Resettlement: Problematizing “Lost Boys of Sudan” Resettlement and Identity.” Western Journal of Communication, (72): 397-414, http://tinyurl.com/8gttuwp.

Books

  • 2024. Foreign Policy Rhetorics in the Global Era: Concepts and Case Studies. Lansing: Michigan State University Press.
  • 2016. Gendered Asylum: Race and Violence in U.S. Law and Politics. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
  • 2016. Text + Field: Innovations in Rhetorical Method. State College: Penn State Press.

Selected Chapters

  • 2021. “Critical legal rhetoric takes on immigration and asylum law.” In Shauhim Talesh, Heinz Klug, & Elizabeth Mertz (Eds.) Research Handbook on Modern Legal Realism (pp. 176-190). Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing.
  • 2019. “Transgendered Asylum and Gendered Fears in US Asylum Law and Politics.” In Bridget M. Haas & Amy Shuman (Eds.) Political Asylum and the Politics of Suspicion (pp. 206-224). Athens, OH: Ohio University Press.
  • 2018. “Necropolitics as foreign affairs rhetoric in contemporary US-Mexico relations.” In Wendy S. Hesford, Adela C. Licona & Christa Teston (Eds.) Precarious Rhetorics (pp. 94-118). Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press.
  • 2020. “Dead, Dying & Failing: Violent Mexico in the Context of Transnational U.S. Politics.” In Kendall R. Phillips & Charles E. Morris III (Eds.) The Conceit of Context: Resituating Domains in Rhetorical Studies (pp. 303-318). Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press.

Courses

  • CA 260 – Communication & Human Behavior
  • CA 316 – Gender & Communication
  • CA 371 – Communication & Conflict Resolution
  • CA 373 – Intercultural Communication & Rhetoric
  • CA 573 – Rhetoric of Globalization & Transnationalism
  • CA 610 – Rhetoric & Performance
  • CA 671 – Communication & Social Conflict
  • CA 969 – Intercultural Rhetoric
  • CA 969 – Rhetoric & Qualitative Methods
  • CA 976 – Rhetorical Criticism
  • CA969 – Migration, Mobility & Stoppage

Recent Media Interviews and Appearances

WKOW 27, ABC, “More international visas at UW terminated, legal action underway,” April 2025, https://www.wkow.com/news/top-stories/more-international-visas-at-uw-terminated-legal-action-underway/article_a328823d-4d8c-48e5-be92-14dafcb98b3e.html

CBS News, “Minnesota joins 19 states in suing Trump administration over canceled student visas,” April 2025, https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/minnesota-sues-trump-administration-canceled-student-visas/

WMTV NBC15, Madison,”‘Really unprecedented situation’: More UW-Madison student visas canceled by federal government,” April 2025, https://www.wmtv15news.com/2025/04/10/really-unprecedented-situation-more-uw-madison-student-visas-canceled-by-federal-government/

Channel 3 News, “U.S. government revokes student, alumni visas,” April 2025, www.channel3000.com/video/u-s-government-revokes-student-alumni-visas/video_51356a3e-99ac-5ef9-9ef2-a2f51e80d810.html

The New Humanitarian, “How Latin American countries should counter Trump’s migration crackdown,” April 2025, https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/opinion/2025/04/01/how-latin-american-countries-should-counter-trumps-migration-crackdown

Washington Post, Quoted in Story, “Trump and his aides cheerily celebrate deportations,” March 2025. https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/03/19/deportations-videos-joking-trump-administration/

WKOW 27, Capital City Sunday, Sara McKinnon on President Trump’s Mass Deportation Plan and the latest ICE Raids, February 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adl2wlAwS7I

WMTV NBC15, Madison, UW- Madison professor gives insight into immigration policy, January 2025. https://www.wmtv15news.com/2025/01/25/uw-madison-professor-gives-insight-into-immigration-policy/

WKOW 27, Capital City Sunday: Sara McKinnon talks President Joe Biden’s executive action at the Southern Border. June 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ9EXU8kZ9k

WPR 89.1, The Morning Show: Professor explains why a 60-mile stretch of jungle is central to current immigration debate. April 2024. https://www.wpr.org/shows/morning-show/new-immigration-patterns-in-darien-gap-rare-blood-disease-amyloidosis-spring-concert-music-preview

The Conversation, “What is the Darien Gap? And why are more migrants risking this Latin American route to get to the US?” March 2024. https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-darien-gap-and-why-are-more-migrants-risking-this-latin-american-route-to-get-to-the-us-225422