“A modest hijab”

Abstract

The encounter perspective highlights frustration, moral commitment, power asymmetry, inequalities, and experiences. This article contributes to the ethnographies of encounters, articulating an encounter perspective with literature on gender and Middle Eastern studies. Through a single-story, I critique the culturalization of humanitarianism. This article shows the reflective discourse of the Syrian-Palestine woman refugee in Brazil who rebuilt her life and engaged in her religious self in its disciplinary practices. Samia’s narrative shows that her modesty was part of a larger personal project of being a pious woman. I argue that centring on the body of a woman and her “culture” deflects attention away from Brazilian precarious humanitarian aid, inequalities and the force of religious will. The methodology was ethnography based on fieldwork conducted between 2015 and 2018 in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.