A (re)construção de identidades de imigrantes na região de fronteira: um estudo a partir da Escola Árabe de Foz do Iguaçu

Abstract

The study includes and analyzes the Arabic School in Brazil as a place to recover and (re)construct the identity of the Arab community in Foz do Iguaçu. It pursues the following goals: to understand the contemporary migratory processes of the Arab community in Brazil during the 19th and 20th centuries, by pervading the school context; to identify the identity (re)constructing areas at the Arab community in Foz do Iguaçu; to understand how an educational establishment becomes a space to formulate, arrange or rearrange the identity of the Arab population group; and, finally, to analyze from oral sources, the parents‟ point of view on the education of their children as well as their educational, cultural and religious relationships in such school. The time and space section focuses on the Arabic school community in Foz do Iguaçu from the mid-1980s. The analyses are guided by bibliographical studies that on population diversity and several features of the Arab community in the region, as well as those which relate migration processes to education. Furthermore, they are based on sources connected to the Arabic School in Brazil and allow one to understand that the school proposes actions to keep the culture alive and to strength characteristics valued by the school community, formed by Arabs and their descendants, regarding the references linked to the Arab people, the Islamic religion and the Lebanese nation. The methodological practice is ruled by four perspectives on records generation: bibliographical, documentary, oral sources and field observations. Theoretical concepts such as plurality, intersubjectivity and identity at the border were used at the interdisciplinaty work (CUCHE, 1999; HALL, 2006; SILVA, 2008); the border as were addressed; the border as place of plurality and interpersonal relations (CERTEAU, 1994; KLAUCK, 2010; SHALLENBERGER, 2011) immigration, education and ethnic groups established in Brazil (TRUZZI, 1997; KREUTZ, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2004; BARTH, 1998; CANCLINI, 2009). The study‟s structure consists of a first chapter addressing the general immigration and education of the Arab community in Brazil between the 19th and 20th centuries. The migration processes that go from the earliest between the 19th and 20th centuries. The migration processes that go from the earliest immigration of Syrians and Lebanese in Brazil to migrations in southern Brazil, by highlighting the city of Foz do Iguaçu as the main stage of this set. A second will adress will address the contextualization of spaces for identities (re)construction: religion, language, cuisine and political participation, which seeks to order the group through cultural references based on memory support. A third chapter deals with the school as a space for interaction and (re)construction of identities, by presenting analyses in schools from documentary sources and oral testimonies. And a last chapter will address the teaching of languages and religion and their relationships within the family environment, as well as the school role as a space for sociability and strengthening of the bonds of belonging. The analyses allow us to understand how the school seeks to value and strengthen the culture of the Arab community in Foz do Iguaçu through their educational practices. Such practices are connected to the religious, social and family issues in which this group is inserted.