| FT-248802-16 | Research Programs: Summer Stipends | John Tofik Karam | Arabs at a South American Border Remaking the Hemisphere | 6/1/2016 - 7/31/2016 | $6,000.00 | John | Tofik | Karam | | | | Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois | Champaign | IL | 61801-3620 | USA | 2016 | Latin American Studies | Summer Stipends | Research Programs | 6000 | 0 | 6000 | 0 | A book-length study of Arab immigrants in the border region of Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina.
I am applying for a NEH Summer Stipend to complete my book, "Manifold Destiny: Arabs at a South American Border Remaking the Hemisphere." It asks "How did Arabs at the "trÃplice fronteira" (tri-border) between Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina transform these Americas?" Arab traders and activists built a plural hemisphere and brought an end to the U.S. dominance enshrined in the doctrine of "manifest destiny." In the 1950s, Lebanese and Palestinians began settling on the Brazilian and Paraguayan sides of the tri-border. Starting in the 1970s, their economic and political networks consolidated Brazil’s clout over the once Argentine-dominated Paraguay. Since the 1990s, they leveraged this new sphere of influence in relation to Mercosul and U.S. impositions. Arabs served as transformative agents of this hemisphere whereby no single authority rules, collaborating and competing in the many-sided struggles among Brazilian, Paraguayan, Argentine, U.S., and other powers. |