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- Title
Kreolische Konfigurationen der Rückkehr zwischen Zwang und Zuflucht. Die Bedeutung von Heimatbesuchen in Kap Verde.
- Authors
Drotbohm, Heike
- Abstract
Based on anthropological research on Fogo and Brava, two Cape Verdean islands, this article focuses on migrant return visits and their particular meaning for "regrounding home", understood as an idea, a social construction as well as a physical place. After reflecting on the particularities of Cape Verde as a creole and transnational society since its historical beginnings, the author examines the banderona, a patron saint festivity, which since centuries annually draws thousands of migrants back to their islands of origins. What initially served as a hierarchic moment between colonial masters and slaves, later turned into a transnational ritual, used for celebrating the upward social mobility of migrant visitors and for redistributing their material gains. In our days these ritualized return visits constitute an important opportunity for reaffirming social ties and for negotiating asymmetric family relations. While nonmigrant islanders make use of the festivity for articulating their needs and for claiming diasporic support, migrants express their social visibility and their willingness to contribute to a transnational livelihood. The author analyzes this articulated interest in maintaining home ties also in the context of the most recent shifts in the world economy, which force migrants to reassess their living arrangements in the diaspora as well as the viability of an eventual permanent return.
- Subjects
CABO Verde; CREOLE dialects; RETURN migration; DURESS (Law); REFUGE (Humanitarian assistance); ANTHROPOLOGICAL research; EMIGRATION &; immigration
- Publication
Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 2011, Vol 136, Issue 2, p311
- ISSN
0044-2666
- Publication type
Article