Dr. Maria do Carmo Dos Santos Gonçalves

Dr. Maria do Carmo dos Santos Gonçalves is currently the director of the Scalabrinian Center for Migration Studies (CSEM), Brazil. From 2010 until 2018, she was the coordinator of the Migrant Assistant Center of Caxias do Sul (Centro de Atendimento ao Migrante). There, she coordinated activities with migrants, refugees, and applicants for refugee status from different regions, such as West Africa and Haiti.
She recently completed her PhD thesis on the Senegalese religious diaspora in southern Brazil and collaborates as a researcher in the research project “Biographies of migrants from Syria and West Africa in Brazil and in Germany – Processes of inclusion and participation in the context of so-called irregular migration”. Her research interests include ethnographical and biographical narrative researches, studies on contemporary diasporas, migration and refuge, Middle East and Islam.