Cape Verdean womanhood in the age of female migration: towards transnational matrifocality

Abstract

This essay focuses on independent female migration as it has developed in Santo
Antão (Cape Verde) and its effect on life in the place of origin, specifically both
significant economic changes and shifts in social and cultural identity. Through an
analysis of life histories and qualitative interviews, I highlight complex dynamics
between migrant women and those who remain in the place of origin and explore
the processes of renegotiating household organization and gender relations that have
been generated by women’s mobility. Relations between migrant and non-migrant
women are complex and ambivalent in contemporary Cape Verde society, with migrants
envied yet burdened with obligations and expectations, taking on the role
of insider/outsider. For their part, the women who stay gain economic and social
power, becoming “surrogate” family heads and thereby reinforcing the matrifocal
family structure already present in Cape Verde even while giving rise to new, allfemale
transnational households. Female migration has also posed a threat to the
long-standing patriarchal model of male authority interwoven with widespread informal
polygamy in the area, ultimately affecting gender relationships and forms of
family organization.