Religion, Migration, and Mobility

The Brazilian Experience

Cristina Maria de Castro, Andrew Dawson, Cristina Maria de Castro, Andrew Dawson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781317409267
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Focusing on migration and mobility, this edited collection examines the religious landscape of Brazil as populated and shaped by transnational flows and domestic migratory movements. Bringing together interdisciplinary perspectives on migration and religion, this book argues that Brazil's diverse religious landscape must be understood within a dynamic global context. From southern to northern Europe, through Africa, Japan and the Middle East, to a host of Latin American countries, Brazilian society has been influenced by immigrant communities accompanied by a range of beliefs and rituals drawn from established 'world' religions as well as alternative religio-spiritual movements. Consequently, the formation and profile of 'homegrown' religious communities such as Santo Daime, the Dawn Valley and Umbanda can only be fully understood against the broader backdrop of migration.

Contributors draw on the case of Brazil to develop frameworks for understanding the interface of religion and migration, asking questions that include: How do the processes and forces of re-territorialization play out among post-migratory communities? In what ways are the post-transitional dynamics of migration enacted and reframed by different generations of migrants? How are the religious symbols and ritual practices of particular worldviews and traditions appropriated and re-interpreted by migrant communities? What role does religion play in facilitating or impeding post-migratory settlement? Religion, Migration and Mobility engages these questions by drawing on a range of different traditions and research methods. As such, this book will be of keen interest to scholars working across the fields of religious studies, anthropology, cultural studies and sociology.

Part 1

Migration

Post-migratory religious settlement

Noted at the close of the preceding introductory chapter, this section focuses upon the processes of post-migratory religious reterritorialization. As each of the following six chapters demonstrates, the dynamics of post-migratory settlement play out relative to a range of factors both internal and external to the migrant community. The following chapters also demonstrate that the migrant communities undergoing religious reterritorialization are neither homogeneous nor fixed entities. The contemporary Muslim community engaged by Castro (chapter 1), for example, comprises a range of ethnicities, including Lebanese, Palestinians, Syrians, and Brazilians. At the same time, Castro notes the longitudinal shift in the profile of Islam in Brazil, in which a formerly African-dominated community evolved into a preponderantly Middle-Eastern ethnicity that is progressively augmented by Muslim converts of European descent. The internal heterogeneity of originary migrant communities is likewise noted by Truzzi with respect to Arab Christian migrants (chapter 2) and Topel with regard to Jewish immigrants (chapter 3). In similar vein, Usarski (chapter 4) notes the changing profile of Buddhism in Brazil, in which its predominantly Japanese heritage is being gradually modified by the ingression of both non-Japanese (e.g. Chinese and Korean) immigrants and Brazilian (predominantly ‘white’) converts. Souza and Guerriero identify parallel changes to the religious profile of the Bolivian migrant community as a once-preponderant Roman Catholic identity is progressively eroded by the combination of Pentecostal growth in Bolivia and post-migratory conversion to Protestantism in Brazil (chapter 5). The impact of subsequent generations moving away from the faith of their migrant forebears is detailed by Grün’s treatment of the Armenian Christian community which notes the erosive effects of mixed-marriages, secularization, and conversion to other modes of religious expression (chapter 6). The challenges pertaining to trans-generational shift are particularly acute for those communities whose membership is not being refreshed by ongoing inward migration. Such communities are thereby caught on the twin horns of a dilemma in which existence today involves maintaining an ethnically inflected religio-cultural identity while future survival necessitates the articulation of an ethnically neutral religious offering (see chapters 2, 4, and 6).

The processes of religious reterritorialization also play out relative to the varying relationships enjoyed by different migrant communities with respect to the prevailing socio-cultural context of their host nation. Using first-hand narratives of Muslim women wearing the hijab, Castro (chapter 1) notes the importance of body-consciousness in Brazil as a significant factor impacting both the experience of those choosing to veil and the perceptions of those outside the Islamic faith. Whereas the cultural politics of difference poses particular problems for Muslims in Brazil, Truzzi (chapter 2) identifies ritual and theological similarities with Roman Catholicism as a challenge for Arab Christian communities who struggle to maintain a specific religious identity that is meaningfully different from the historically dominant faith of the Brazilian nation. Grün (chapter 6) also explores how the traditional dominance of Roman Catholicism combines with a legacy of race politics in Brazil to furnish a key reference point for the post-migratory articulation of an Armenian ‘Christian’ (and, by implication, ‘white’) identity. In contrast, Usarski (chapter 4) identifies the valorization of Japanese cultural heritage as an important contributory element to the gradual decline of ‘yellow’ Buddhism by impeding its willingness to adapt to the Brazilian context and thereby appeal both to subsequent generations of Brazilian Nikkei (Japanese descendants) and potential converts from society at large. As Castro (chapter 1) and Topel (chapter 3) demonstrate, however, the global-modern character of Brazilian society goes someway to mitigating the assimilatory tendencies of post-migratory settlement. On the one hand, modern societal diversity and political-legal tolerance go a long way to facilitating public displays of religio-cultural difference in ways previously not afforded minority communities. On the other, the worldwide networks and border-transcending flows of globalization enable ongoing transnational linkages that both relativize domestic forces and reinforce religio-cultural particularities. The growth of political Islam identified by Castro and the ‘orthodoxization’ of Brazilian Judaism noted by Topel are cases in point.

1 Perceptions and practices of the hijab among Muslim migrants in Brazil

Cristina Maria de Castro

Introduction

This chapter explores a range of perceptions, interpretations, and practices relating to the use of the ‘hijab’ (female Islamic attire) in Brazil by immigrant Muslims and converts to Islam. When moving to another country, immigrants undertake and exhibit their religious practices and beliefs in a new context filled with challenges and opportunities. In the case of Islam in Brazil, it can be said that it needs to respond to the demands and queries of a host society ‘characterized by the strong presence of Catholicism, the growth of Protestantism, a secular state, a basically Western culture, dependency on the USA and the Brazilian tradition of absorbing immigrants in a very strong process of assimilation’ (Castro, 2013: 5). The impact of the new socio-cultural context on religious practices and beliefs may be usefully observed not only through analysis of the immigrants’ perceptions and practices of Islam but also through observation of how local converts appropriate and re-signify the religion. A study of the perceptions, interpretations, and practices relating to the wearing of Islamic female attire in Brazil represents a privileged opportunity to achieve a better understanding of the tensions and negotiations to which practitioners of this minority faith are subjected. The religious practices and beliefs of immigrants and their descendants, however, are never the simple reproduction of activities and beliefs present in the country of origin. With respect to Muslim migration, Bruinessen et al. remark that ‘Islam has developed local forms in all parts of the globe where it has taken root’ (2001: 3). As the host nation, broader society has an extremely important role to play in a process that presents new problems in need of new answers that impact upon post-migratory identity re-formation and religious reconstruction (Montenegro, 2000). What follows explores this process by taking the hijab and its use in Brazil as its starting point.

According to the Qur’an and Sunnah, there are four main requirements concerning the ‘hijab,’ that is, Islamic female attire. First, ‘the dress must cover the whole body except for the areas specifically exempted’ (i.e. face and hands). Second, ‘the dress must be loose enough so as not to describe the shape of a woman’s body.’ The dress should also ‘be thick enough so as not to show the color of the skin it covers or the shape of the body which it is supposed to hide.’ Finally, ‘the dress should not be such that it attracts men’s attention to the woman’s beauty’ (www.iman.co.nz/ed/dress.php). When worn, the hijab demonstrates belonging to Islam, which exposes Muslim women to judgments about and interpretations of their religion made by society at large – in Brazil’s case, a society influenced by a manifestly ‘orientalist’ media (Said, 1981). Wearing the hijab also takes on a series of functions for Muslims that may reveal dissension and dispute within a country’s own minority communities. Religious interpretations that see the hijab as an instrument for the preservation of women’s modesty, honor, and dignity exist alongside views of this attire as a symbol of political and cultural resistance. The latter view is shared by some politically sensitized Muslim women who are aware of the dramas and battles that Muslims in other regions of the world go through. Some converts may also practice the hijab as a means of acquiring symbolic capital and the respect of their Muslim sisters (Castro, 2013).

Holding in view the dynamics of identity re-formation and religious reconstruction, this chapter explores the experiential dimension of the post-migratory process by reproducing and reflecting upon accounts of veiling by immigrant Muslims and converts to Islam. To this end, the following material opens with a brief account of Islam’s historical presence in Brazil before moving on to treating a range of non-Muslim responses to the practice of veiling as perceived by wearers of the hijab. Using first- and second-hand ethnographic materials gathered from Muslims in São Paulo (Castro, 2013; Marques, 2000; Osman, 2010; Ramos, 2003), Rio de Janeiro (Chagas, 2010; Chagas and Mezabarba, 2012), Florianópolis (Espínola, 2005), and Brasília (Hamid, 2007), the chapter then treats a variety of issues pertaining to the use of the veil in Brazil.

Islam in Brazil

Islam is today practiced in Brazil mostly by Arab immigrants and their descendants. Nevertheless, individuals of other ethnic-national descent (e.g. Iran, Pakistan, Guinea-Bissau, and the Ivory Coast) are also part of this religious minority, but in significantly smaller numbers. Conversion to Islam by Brazilians with no Arab ancestry has grown in recent years and is changing the profiles of certain Muslim communities in the country. According to the 2010 Brazilian census, the Muslim population increased by 29% over the course of the last decade (from 27,239 to 35,167), with the children and grandchildren of immigrants classed as Brazilian. The number of Muslims identified as Brazilian has also risen by 9% (to 70%) since the last census, with conversions to Islam representing only a fraction of this number. As for geographical distribution, the 2010 census records (in descending order) the states of São Paulo, Paraná, Rio Grande do Sul, and Rio de Janeiro as containing the largest concentrations of Muslims, with the Federal District (including the capital city of Brasília) registering the sixth-largest Muslim community in Brazil (Castro and Vilela, 2013).

Muslim migration

Islam’s presence in Brazil is claimed by some Muslim leaders to date back to the nation’s ‘founding’ period (1500–1700), though such claims may be designed to legitimize Muslims as being as longstanding in Brazil as their Christian cousins. It was only with the beginning of the slave trade, however, that an organized collective of Muslim believers started to emerge in Brazil, with African slaves of Yoruba descent being the most well-known (Pinto, 2011). In 1835, for example, Yoruba slaves organized an uprising in the important city of Salvador in the northeastern state of Bahia, the repercussions of which were felt as far away as Europe (Reis, 2003). With participants in the uprising variously beaten, deported, or condemned to death, the subsequent persecution of Muslims in Bahia prompted their dispersal to other regions, such as the countryside of Alagoas and the state capitals of Pernambuco and Rio de Janeiro. From that moment on, the state viewed Islam as something to be feared and controlled. Despite its persecution by the state, both academic studies and literature produced by members of the Muslim community of the time describe aspects of Islam in this period as an integral part of the Brazilian religious landscape (Al-Baghdadi, 2007; Rodrigues, 2004; Silva, 2004; Soares and Mello, 2006). Such African Muslim communities, however, began to decline from the end of the nineteenth century and had disappeared by the middle of the twentieth. Combined with the incessant repression of Muslim religiosity, this disappearance may also be explained by a progressive loss of connectivity with Africa and the Islamic centers of that continent (Pinto, 2011: 7).

The arrival of Syrian and Lebanese immigrants to Brazil opened a new phase of Muslim history in the country. Indeed, Lebanese immigrants and their descendants represent the majority of Muslims in Brazil today. It should be noted, however, that there were several phases of Syrian and Lebanese migration, with the first phase beginning in 1880 and including almost entirely followers of the Christian faith motivated by the desire to ‘make America’ and succeed in a new and unknown world. For some, Argentina, Brazil, and the USA were the same country, while others arrived in Brazil (with its less restrictive immigration laws) after an unsuccessful attempt to enter the USA. The vast majority of these Syrian and Lebanese immigrants arrived without contracts to work in farming or industry and lacked capital to invest in start-up projects. Consequently, and with street peddling offering a perceived path to rapid riches, many became merchants, with trading soon becoming their main activity in their new host country (Osman, 2011). After saving a little money, they started opening small shops and inviting friends and relatives to work for them, selling their goods through consignment. Successful shopkeepers invested their savings in wholesale businesses and later in industry. This process subsequently came full circle as older immigrants who had become wholesale merchants or manufacturers then supplied goods to the more recent immigrants working as street peddlers or shopkeepers.

Back in the Middle East, the decline of the Ottoman Empire and subsequent French dominion in the region prompted the emigration of an increasing number of Muslims who felt belittled by the preferential treatment of Christians in Lebanon (Gattaz, 2001). The Muslims who came to Brazil at this time initially had help from fellow Lebanese Christians, many of whom were already very successful in commerce. Afterwards, though, Lebanese Muslim immigrants began building their own networks of economic self-help as they established themselves in other parts of Brazil already settled by migrants sharing similar regional origins and the same Islamic faith. A new wave of Muslim migration to Brazil was prompted in the mid-1970s by war in Lebanon. When the conflict ended in the 1990s, many decided to remain in Brazil due to the lack of economic prospects offered by their native country.

The immigration of Palestinian Muslims to Brazil shares features with other Islamic migratory flows and may be best understood relative to two landmark historical events: the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and the invasion of Iraq by the USA and allied forces in 2003. On account of events such as these, understanding of Palestinian Muslims migrating to Brazil must include consideration of the fact that their identities were re-signified at this time in light of a very unstable and dynamic political context. Hamid, for example, notes how the creation of the state of Israel and the ensuing annexation to Jordan of part of the Palestinian territory resulted in Palestinian immigrants entering Brazil in the early 1950s on a Jordanian passport (2007). Palestinians who moved to Iraq during the same period were subsequently obliged to migrate again after its invasion in 2003 by the USA and allied forces. Having settled in the Ruweished displacement camp in Jordan, these migrant refugees later gained entry to Brazil through the state-funded ‘Programme of Solidarity Settlement’ (Programa de Assentamento Solidário). Over the course of this period, Palestinians have entered Brazil with a variety of different statuses (e.g. immigrant and refugee) and passports (such as, Jordanian, Iraqi, and Israeli). Acknowledged by Islamic leaders to be one the largest groups among the Brazilian Muslim minority today, Palestinian Muslims are significantly represented, along with those of Syrian and Lebanese origin.

Muslim converts

Despite the difficulty in quantifying the number of Brazilian converts to Islam, their growth in certain parts of Brazil has been of such an order as to merit comment by Muslim leaders and academic commentators alike. Some religious leaders, for example, have declared to newspapers and periodicals that the greater visibility gained through the massive media attention to Islam subsequent to the September 11 attacks in the USA actually generated an increase in the number of Brazilians converting to the faith (http://revistaepoca.globo.com). Montenegro, however, disagrees with this viewpoint and, instead, relates the increase in the number of conversions to Islam to a TV soap opera called ‘The Clone’ (O Clone). First aired between 2001 and 2002 by the largest television network in Brazil (Globo), The Clone’s depiction of Muslims as content and devoted to family enjoyed extremely large viewing figures across the nation (2004). In turn, Pinto highlights other factors as possible influences in the conversion process by arguing that

the growth of conversions to Islam occurred in communities which created channels of dialogue with non-Muslim Brazilians and channels of integration for converts. It did not occur in communities which continued to think of themselves as places of reproduction of the cultural tradition of Muslim immigrants from the Middle East.

(2010: 211–12)

Such is borne out, for example, by the experiences of the Islamic Youth League in São Paulo and the Charitable Muslim Society of Rio de Janeiro, whose relatively high conversion rates reflect organizational cultures of receptivity to non-Muslim Brazilians interested in knowing more about Islam. While the former organization has around 100 converts in a group of approximately 200 families (Castro, 2013), the second is particularly worthy of note because, though originally founded by Arab immigrants, the majority of its members are converts to Islam (Montenegro, 2000).

According to Pinto, Brazilians who decide to convert to Islam usually embrace the faith through one of four typical trajectories: matrimonial conversion; emotional conversion; intellectual conversion; and ideological conversion. The trajectory of ‘matrimonial conversion’ includes those who...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of contributors
• Introduction: Religion, migration, and mobility: Setting the scene
• Part 1 Migration: Post-migratory religious settlement
• Part 2 Mobility: Religious mobility
• Index