XVII Congress of the Brazilian Studies Association

Rethinking Middle Eastern Migration to and from Brazil

Session Submission Type: Complete Panel

Abstract

Scholarship on Middle Eastern immigration to Brazil has primarily addressed individual communities studied in isolation from each other, and focused on unidirectional migration. Departing from this approach, this panel will compare different Middle Eastern immigrant communities of multiethnic and multireligious origins, which arrived in Brazil from Armenia, Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria, as well as their return migrations.

Diogo Bercito will explore Christian immigration from Syria and Lebanon, paying particular attention to cultural practices and the creation of a “Syrian-Lebanese” identity, the influence of this community on Brazilian cuisine, and the political participation of Brazilians of Syrian-Lebanese descent. Heitor Loureiro will examine the socioeconomic upward mobility of Armenian Christians in São Paulo, considering the contradictions between their political project for their homeland and their acceptance of the political establishment in their host society. Michael Rom will analyze why Brazil suddenly became home to the largest Egyptian Jewish community outside the Middle East during the second half of the 1950s. Finally, Bárbara Caramaru Teles will assess the return migration of Palestinian-Brazilian women to the West Bank, and the impact this return migration had on their Palestinian identities.

Through an interdisciplinary approach that draws on the methods of history and anthropology, and through the work of scholars based in both Brazil and the United States, this panel will offer new directions for the comparative study of Middle Eastern migration to and from Brazil.

Hybrid session. Link: https://SDSU.zoom.us/s/88623886716

Sub Unit

• XVII Congress of the Brazilian Studies Association

Individual Presentations

• Um Brasil sírio-libanês - Diogo Bercito, Georgetown University

• Armênios em São Paulo: mobilidade social e disputas políticas no século XX - Heitor Loureiro, Gepom

• Dos pirâmides ao país do futuro: A imigração dos judeus egípcios para o Brasil - Michael Rom, University of Cape Town

• Pensando gênero nas dinâmicas palestinas de mobilidades e retorno - Bárbara Caramuru Teles, Universidade Federal do Paraná

Chair

• Michael Rom, University of Cape Town

Session Organizer

• Michael Rom, University of Cape Town