The centrality of the female body in Brazilian culture: Evangelical and Muslim responses

ABSTRACT

This article aims to analyse how both Evangelical and Islamic religions deal with a central aspect of the construction of the Brazilian national identity: the body. The Brazilian religious field is exposed to this cultural value and reacts to it in different ways. While Islam preaches female modesty, involving the ‘concealment’ of the body and its forms, Evangelicals reinforce part of the Brazilian culture of appreciation and care for physical attributes, albeit using the rhetoric of doing so with moderation and modesty. The data presented here were collected through interviews with religious leaders and through participant observation in the Baptist Church of Lagoinha, in Belo Horizonte, and the Islamic Youth League, in São Paulo, Brazil.

KEYWORDS:

• Religion
• the body
• women
• Evangelicals
• Islam
• Brazil

Acknowledgements

Cristina Maria de Castro is grateful to the Brazilian Science and Research Council (CNPq) for funding a fellowship (Bolsa de Produtividade) that made part of this work possible.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The body is a marker for all individuals. However, due to the predominance of gender binary, it is generally on the female body that the greatest references and controls fall.

2. Based on the Census, it is not possible to identify the religion of the parents of all of the individuals.

3. Qaradhawi is an internationally influential Sunni theologian. He studied at the University of Al-Azhar in Egypt, worked for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and today directs the European Council for Fatwa and Research.

4. Sunnah refers to the sayings and acts of the Prophet Mohammed, the founder of Islam. It is a set of information of great relevance for the adherents of the Islamic faith.

5. Compiled by Jamal Badawi at http://www.jamalbadawi.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=2&Itemid=2, accessed 15 October 2015.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Cristina Maria de Castro

Cristina Maria de Castro is a Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil. In 2005 and 2007, she was a visiting researcher at the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World, based in Leiden, the Netherlands. She is the author of The Construction of Muslim Identities in Contemporary Brazil (2013) and co-editor of Religion, Migration and Mobility: The Brazilian Experience (2017).

Nina Rosas

Nina Rosas is a Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil. In 2013, she was a visiting scholar in the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California, USA. She is currently studying and publishing on body, gender, and Evangelical culture.