Paper long abstract:

In Cape Verde in recent decades, youth gained salience as a demographic group as well as a social and symbolic category, strongly associated with pleasure, crime and moral crisis. The dominant discourses of and about youths, both highlight a paradoxical vision of the family. Evoked as the most important dimension in young people lives and the basis of capeverdean society, contemporary families are also seen as in crisis, "desestruturadas" (unstructured) and pointed as the roots of all social problems.

Based on ethnographic data collected with youths and families in urban Cape Verde, this paper proposes a critical analysis beyond moral discourses on family and youth crisis. Transnational family networks and intergenerational reciprocity are revealed as the major resources for young people to develop their identities, life expectations and choices, as well as to deal with the growing ambiguity and uncertainty associated with the condition of youth in contemporary Cape Verde.