São Paulo – Sociologist Natália Nahas Carneiro Maia Calfat is the elected president of Brazil’s Institute for Arab Culture (ICArabe) for the 2025-2026 term. Among the various projects she plans to implement are promoting more literary and musical gatherings, the so-called “diwan” (in Arabic), and bringing together people who work with Arab culture. “There are many people promoting language, culture, art, and scientific research in many separate fronts, and I wanted to bring everyone together,” she says.
Last Tuesday (10), Calfat was at the Arab-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce (ABCC) in São Paulo, where she met with its president, Osmar Chohfi, and vice president of communication and marketing, Silvia Antibas. She was accompanied by the elected vice president, Francisco Miraglia, and the financial director of ICArabe, Gabriel Sayegh. At the end of the meeting, she spoke with ANBA.
Holding a degree in Sociology and a master’s and a PhD in Political Science from the University of São Paulo (USP), Calfat worked for nearly ten years in foreign trade. She dealt with the export of commodities and had Arab countries among her commercial partners. When business with the Arabs began to be replaced by clients in Brazil and South America, the sociologist decided to return to academia. She participates in a working group on the Middle East at USP and her research areas and interests include power-sharing, minority veto, sectarianism, the Lebanese political system, and Shiism.
Earlier this year, she worked as a researcher on the paper “Brazil-Lebanon South-South Cooperation in Key Sectors: The Way Forward in the World of Work – South-South Meeting Point,” prepared by the International Labor Organization (ILO).
At ICArabe, she held various positions before being chosen as president: international relations director, administrative director, cultural director, and secretary-general—stages of a career that began about ten years ago.
“I joined like most young people who became interested in the institute, which was through the cultural production that it promotes, through activities and courses. Little by little, I got more involved, naturally in a voluntary way, to help with the dissemination of culture, the promotion of knowledge, and the organization of events,” she says.
A fundamental part of ICArabe’s mission is to promote Arab culture in its various aspects—as there are 22 Arab countries—expand knowledge about the Arab world and share with society what is being produced in the cultural and scientific fields.
ICArabe and contemporary artistic production
“I believe that’s exactly what we need to rethink. I mean, not to deny the political instability that exists in the Arab world, but what kind of cultural production is made from such instability? The film festival, for example. What kind of literary production, what kind of poetry is being made?” says Calfat, about ICArabe’s role in providing these answers to society.
Part of the answers, she says, will come with a medium- and long-term plan for the institution, along with the expansion of some ICArabe activities, maintaining the Arab World Film Festival, an annual partnership between ICArabe, the ABCC, and CineSesc, that showcases contemporary Arab cinema production.
“One of the major projects for the 2025/2026 term is the resumption of courses, the revival of cultural events such as diwans, which are events of poetry, prose readings, and music,” she says, also mentioning as goals to establish more partnerships both within and outside of Brazil. Diwans are also collections of poems or literary works of a Muslim nature.
Calfat is the second woman to preside over ICArabe. The first was pharmacist Soraya Smaili, a member of ICArabe’s Superior Council and the ABCC’s Board of Directors. At 40 years old, Calfat is one of the youngest to take the helm of the institute.
“There was a demand [from the institute] for the younger generation to be more involved and for a renewal. This is an internal demand of ours, and I think I represent a bit of that. It’s important that we have a woman in a leadership position. I believe that at times I coordinated some functions in this regard, so let’s say it’s a path that—having gone through various departments—is kind of a crowning, a unification of the various strengths and challenges I encountered in these roles,” she says.
Founded in October 2004, ICArabe resulted from an initiative of researchers and intellectuals dedicated to studying and promoting Arab culture, including mathematician Francisco Miraglia, geographer Aziz Nacib Ab’Saber (1924-2012), writer Milton Hatoum, journalist José Arbex Jr., and sociologists Ricardo Antunes, Emir Sader and Soraya Smaili. Over its 20 years of history, it has promoted the Arab culture through courses, exhibitions, and partnerships with various Brazilian institutions, such as the ABCC itself.
Calfat says she intends to work with these institutions and the many intellectuals dedicated to promoting the culture of the Arab world. In addition to uniting people, she aims to promote ICArabe’s activities beyond the Rio and São Paulo. “These people already know and meet each other, but there are several separate groups, a lot is being done,” she adds.
Read more:
Festival explores Arab world through art of cinema
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
