No dia 22 de abril, Jónína Einarsdóttir (University of Iceland) será a oradora convidada do Seminário do Grupo de Investtigação Diversidades sobre o tema Bissau-Guinean Almudos in Senegal: Knowledge, Power and Liberation. O evento é organizado pela investigadora do ICS-ULisboa Clara Saraiva e integra-se nas actividades de estudos pós-graduados ICS-ULisboa. Na Sala 2 do ICS-ULisboa, pelas 17h e online (senha: 147015).

International agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) define Quran schoolboys begging on the streets of Senegalese cities as victims of child trafficking. The Fula of Guinea-Bissau are divided into the Fulbe Rimbe and the Fulbe Djiahabe, and historically, the former group was the masters of the latter, descendants of enslaved people. Both groups have their sons as almudos, studying the Quran in Senegal, while the latter group additionally applies Quran education to free themselves from the stigma of slave descent and to enhance their social status. This presentation aims to shed light on the failed efforts to curb the alleged child trafficking of the Bissau-Guinean almudos. It rests on data collected during a series of anthropological fieldwork since 2009. Embedded in layers of coloniality, the cernos keep their position as community leaders. With the anti-trafficking establishment ignoring the almudos' search for knowledge, power and liberation, the cernos' position of power and the reciprocal nature of almsgiving, counter-trafficking efforts are bound to fail.

Jónína Einarsdóttir is a Professor of Anthropology at the Faculty of Sociology, Anthropology and Folkloristics, University of Iceland. She has conducted extensive fieldwork in Guinea-Bissau and Iceland and had shorter assignments in Mozambique, Malawi and Sierra Leone. She has, for instance,  studied maternal grief, infanticide, child trafficking, health-related issues and adolescents in Guinea-Bissau. In Iceland, Einarsdóttir has done research on ethical questions related to the treatment of extremely preterm infants and the implication of their birth on the daily life of their families, domestic violence and punishment of children, and the 20th-century customs to send urban children to stay and work on farms during the summertime.