Master thesis: Ethno-religious identity formation of the Muslim Arab community in Buenos Aires (anthropological research)

‘Muslim Argentinians with Arab roots in Buenos Aires’

An anthropological research about the ethno-religious identity formation of the Muslim Arab community in Buenos Aires, Argentina

CONCLUSION

Having explored the (self-) perception - in terms of sameness and otherness - and the effect of image, stereotyping and discrimination on the formation of the ethno-religious identity of the Muslim Arab community in Buenos Aires, this thesis provides answers as to how ethnicity and religion define the identity of the Muslim Arab community in Buenos Aires. In focusing on religion, this thesis has documented the connection between religion and ethnic identity. More specifically I have sought to answer the central question guiding my research: How has discrimination shaped the collective ethno-religious identity of the Muslim Arab community in Buenos Aires, after the 1990’s?

Discrimination is not so much evident on a large scale within Argentine society or in the daily lives of members from the Muslim Arab community or social networks. Nowadays, strong discrimination is rather suffered by the marginalized poor in this country as class and socio-economic status prove to be the major motivations for discrimination instead of religious affiliation (Jozami 1996a&b). A majority of the Muslim Arab community currently belong to the middle class or higher middle class (Klich & Lesser 1998: 168), discrimination in terms of class or socio-economic status is thus not relevant. In contemporary Argentina, the Muslim Arab community peacefully coexists with the rest of the society and is part of it. However, a number of its members feels exposed to stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination through biased media image reporting.

It is the media that is primarily responsible for further contributing to the multiplication of misperceptions about the relationship between Islam and Arabs, as an ethnic group. The lumping together of cultural and religious matters, an act often committed by the Western mass media, leads to confusion and the spreading of distorted images (Hafez 2000, Siddiqi 1997). The existing stereotypes about the Muslim Arab diaspora are of a rather essentialized nature and provide the public with primitive images about Islam and the Arab culture.

To counter the negative portrayals of the Muslim Arab diaspora in the media, the Muslim Arab community in Buenos Aires has participated in image-improving initiatives in the last couple of years, especially after September 11^th 2001. Recent examples are the Semana de la Cultura de los Países Árabes and the Natalicio del Profeta, the first an event with a cultural and the second event with a religious emphasis. Such collective initiatives have simultaneously attempted to reunite the community’s members by emphasizing on the cultural stuff. Religious dress, practices, and organizational affiliations serve as important identity markers that help promote individual self-awareness and preserve group cohesion, as ethnic and national heritage is displayed and thus maintained (Eriksen 1993).

The Muslim Arab community was, and in certain ways still is, considered as culturally distinctive in relation to other dominant ethnic majorities in Argentina. The term Turco is a popular image, or rather classification, used by outsiders - Others - to refer to the community’s members in Argentina. This ethnic classification created a feeling of otherness among the community. The image of the Turco has long been internalized by the Muslim Arab community, in the sense that they themselves classify themselves as Turco’s. Following Larrain’s train of thought, this process which affects the formation of ethnic boundaries, reflects how we tend to internalize the opinions about us that others maintain about us (Larrain 2000: 26).

Particularly apposite to this study was the concept of identity salience, which recognizes contributing factors and processes that make one identity of greater importance in the hierarchy of multiple identities that comprise a sense of self. As individuals become more committed to a given role, that role will assume higher identity salience (Peek 2005). The salient social categories that define the ethno-religious identity of the Muslim Arab community are religion, ethnicity and nationality; creating feelings of sameness and otherness by creating boundaries. Religion, even more so than ethnicity, is the most effective facilitator of a feeling of belonging to the Muslim Arab community. At the same time, it becomes the primary category for creating a feeling of otherness on different levels of identification with non-Muslims on the macro level, fellow Argentinians on the meso- and believers of the various branches in Islam on a micro-level.

Immigrant groups differ in the ways they focus on and integrate their religious and ethnic identities. Some immigrant religious communities emphasize their members' religious identity more than their ethnic foundation, whereas others stress ethnic identity and rely on religious institutions primarily to preserve cultural traditions and ethnic boundaries (Yang and Ebaugh 2001:367 in Peek 2005: 218). As in the case of the Muslim Arab community, immigrants generally tend to draw on the resources of cultural stuff and build religious institutions and re-establish familiar social and cultural activities in the new host society, in order to reinforce their ethno-cultural background (Smith 1978, Williams 1988, Kurien 1998 in Peek 2005: 219). But for a minority group such as the Muslim Arab community, living in a ‘Western’ country makes it difficult to maintain and practice culture and religion as in the Arab world. Yet in the last couple of decennia - especially since the presidency of Carlos Menem - the construction of ethno-religious entities, such as mosques and cultural centres, have led to a more public manifestation of Islam and Arab culture in Buenos Aires.

The community’s members generally identify themselves as Muslim Argentinian with Arab roots, may they be practising Muslims or not. These individuals do not only consider themselves part of the Muslim Arab community, but also stress their Argentinidad – based on feelings of sameness and belonging. Yet depending on specific situations different parts of their ethno-religious identity are stressed upon. Here the emphasis lies on the multiplicity and fragmentation of social identities and the individual capacity of a person to adopt several identities with respect to social interactions within and outside the own community (Lloréns, 2002: 670-672). The fragmentation of identities - may they be of social, cultural, or ethno-religious nature - becomes particularly evident amongst the second and third generation of Muslim Arab Argentinians. The meanings and boundaries of the ethno-religious identity of the Muslim Arab community are constantly renegotiated, revised, and redefined, depending on specific situations that each individual member or the community as a group encounters, the historical and social contexts.

In conclusion, for quite a few individuals within the community, especially the younger generations, the confrontation with the discriminatory and Western construed images about Islam and Arab culture has led to the questioning or embracing of one’s ethno-religious identity. The community is held up by the practising Muslims, who are the visible ones reinforcing the sense of community through religion. In agreement with Peek (2005), this study has shown that religion plays a salient role and is of continuing importance in preserving cultural and ethnic traditions, supporting the adjustment of first-generation immigrants to a new host society, and providing a source of identity for the second, third and probably future generations.