Imigrantes árabes na fronteira de Pedro Juan Caballero (PY) e Ponta Porã (BR): relações comerciais, casamentos e práticas religiosas

Abstract

This study analyses the reterritorialization process of Arab immigrants in the border between Pedro Juan Caballero (Paraguay) and Ponta Porã (Brazil). The object is focused at the immigrants’ commercial relationships, religious practices and affective relationships, with examples of marriages between Arab men and Brazilian and Paraguayan women. In order to understand the border region, it is necessary to analyze factors that attracted Arab immigrants through commercial and geopolitical relations created between Brazil and Paraguay. We performed literature review about the border, identities and Arab immigrants, as well as interviews, informal conversations and exploratory fieldwork in “spaces of/with Arabs” like the mosque, cemeteries, their houses and stores. We elaborated a cartography and realized that the business center of the Paraguayan border holds the highest number of Arab-owned stores. Neighborhood areas, on the other hand, where Arabs live, are in the Brazilian side. This is due to currency exchange and safety reasons, according to the immigrants. Hence, this research allows us to state that Arab immigrants, in their reterritorialization process, are re-elaborating their identity by means of self-affirming and negotiating their presence in varied places they occupy, live and visit. The Arab immigrant reterritorializes mainly in religious practices, in the mosque of Ponta Porã, and through business in stores of Pedro Juan Caballero. Finally, we observed that Arab, Brazilian and Paraguayan wives depend economically on their Arab husbands.