Caught Between Changing Tides: Gender and Kinship in Cape Verde

ABSTRACT

Gender ideologies in Cape Verde are shifting. Individuals find themselves caught between changing tides, pushed and pulled in opposite directions by divergent gendered expectations. The article examines the different ways in which young women and men take recourse to tactics in response to the tensions that arise as they deal with changing gender ascriptions in the midst of their relations with community and kin. Women, in particular, are unevenly affected by traditional demands and expectations whilst they cross the boundaries of traditional gender roles in their pursuit of enhanced education and more sexual freedom. Yet, their actions are not characterized by an outright rejection of traditional gender ideologies, but rather by piecemeal tactical manoeuvres to plot a route through the centrifugal forces at play.

KEYWORDS:

• Cape Verde
• kinship
• gender and sexuality
• migration
• intersectionality

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Susana Viegas, Lisa Äkesson and the anonymous reviewers for all of their insightful comments and suggestions.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Elizabeth Challinor http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4374-067X

Notes

1. Papa translates literally as instant cereal.

2. Dona Maria's sister then added that ‘some still do it; they have no alternative'.

3. The phrase in Portuguese was ‘se gostas de mim’. In this context, I have chosen the verb ‘to love’ since the term ‘gostar’ is commonly used as a substitute for the more literary verb ‘amar’.

4. I met Pedró's mother in Assomada in April 2014, selling in the market, but she did not wish to be interviewed.

5. According to an informant, 40 years ago, girls were ‘kidnapped’ by young men in Assomada. At dances, for example, a man would sling a girl on his shoulder and take her home. Nobody else would want her since she would no longer be a virgin.

6. Denti ta morde lingua, mas es ta mora djuntu.

Additional information

Funding

The research was funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), Lisbon, Portugal in the Centre for Research in Anthropology (CRIA) at the University of Minho (UM). It began as a post-doctoral grant [SFRH/BPD/36914/2007], and fieldwork was then funded within the ambit of the Programa Ciência 2008 and the project ‘Care as Sustainability in Crisis Situations’ [PTDC/CS-ANT/117259/2010] within the strategic project of CRIA [PEst-OE/SADG/UI4038/2014].