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The Conservative Aspects of a Centripetal Diaspora: The Case of the Cape Verdean Tabancas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2011

Wilson Trajano Filho
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Abstract

This article deals with the continuous flow of resources, values and goods that takes place within a Cape Verdean institution called tabanca. It examines the effects of some practices of the so-called Cape Verdean diaspora on local forms of sociality in Santiago's tabancas, in order to show that these flows have a remarkable conservative tendency and contribute to the reproduction of traditional forms of social organization. The Cape Verde I present in this article is at variance with the standard image of the country in current anthropological literature, which approaches social life in the archipelago using analytical tools developed in interdisciplinary fields such as globalization theory and post-colonial, transnational or diasporic studies. Through the ethnographic analysis of the flows within the tabanca, I put the Cape Verde case in the general context of West African political culture to argue that some of its attributes, which appear in literature on transnationalism, diaspora and globalization as the outcome of contemporary transformation, can best be explained in terms of a conservative structural continuity with the political culture that evolved in the northern part of West Africa, known as Senegambia.

Cet article traite du flux continu de ressources, de valeurs et de biens au sein d'une institution cap-verdienne du nom de tabanca. Il examine les effets de certaines pratiques de la dite diaspora cap-verdienne sur des formes locales de socialité dans les tabancas de Santiago, afin de montrer que ces flux ont une remarquable tendance conservatrice et contribuent à la reproduction de formes traditionnelles d'organisation sociale. Le Cap-Vert décrit dans cet article se démarque de l'image classique du pays qu'en donne la littérature anthropologique courante, qui aborde la vie sociale dans l'archipel par le biais d'outils analytiques mis au point dans des champs interdisciplinaires tels que la théorie de la globalisation et les études postcoloniales, transnationales ou diasporiques. À travers l'analyse ethnographique des flux dans la tabanca, l'article place le cas du Cap-Vert dans le contexte général de la culture politique d'Afrique de l'Ouest pour affirmer que le meilleur moyen d'expliquer certains de ces attributs, qui apparaissent dans la littérature sur le transnationalisme, la diaspora et la globalisation comme la résultante de la transformation contemporaine, est en termes d'une continuité structurelle conservatrice avec la culture politique qui s'est développée dans la partie septentrionale de l'Afrique de l'Ouest, connue sous le nom de Sénégambie.

Type
Research Articles
Information
Africa , Volume 79 , Issue 4 , November 2009 , pp. 520 - 542
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2009

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