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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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Strained Bonds: Negotiating connectivity and reciprocity among transatlantic Cape Verdean families.
| Panel |
23. Family Dynamics an Migration: Tensions in Gender and Generation Relations
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| Paper ID | 337 |
| Author(s) |
Drotbohm, Heike
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | Already since their early integration into the transatlantic commerce between the African continent, Europe and the Americas, Cape Verdean families have learned how to live their communication, emotions, and responsibilities within and between the nine islands as well as in relation to the Cape Verdean Diaspora, be it in Boston, Lisbon, Paris or Dakar.
While male migration in former times predominated, today the gender-relation is balanced. However – forms, reasons, modes, and experiences of migration still vary significantly between men and women and these gender-differences constitute an important issue of Cape Verdean perceptions of tans-local connectedness.
My presentation will concentrate on young mothers, many of whom leave their home island already a couple of months after the birth of their child, in order to continue their life-projects abroad. Following Cape-Verdean family-patterns they hand over their children to one of the children’s grandmothers, who are willing to stay and raise the child, and the remittances sent back by the young mother will constitute an important part of the household’s income in the future.
In my paper, I will talk about these inter-generational patterns of mutual support, about notions of translocal motherhood, and also about the exclusion of men.
However, I will also bring to mind what happens when reciprocities fail, connections break, and expectations convert into disillusions. These and other kinds of tensions and conflicts, that emerge in the trans-local social space spanning across the globe, will stand in the centre of my argument, in order to underline the significance of an anthropology, that not only stresses the gains and successes of globalization, but includes also its failures and losses.
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