Paper short abstract:

The complex interplay between perceived rights and obligations and the actual tactics and bureaucracies of care that impact upon the lives of Cape Verdean students in Porto, sets the scene for two case studies of chance encounters that transform a stranger and a colleague into next of kin.

Paper long abstract:

Cape Verdean students in northern Portugal occupy the centre of a transnational web of family, social and institutional ties that elucidate the complex interplay between perceived rights and obligations and actual practices of care. The (temporary) withdrawal of emotional and economic parental support to punish unplanned pregnancies (albeit at a distance), thwarts the moral expectations of daughters and contrasts with the local, tactical care practices of Cape Verdean peers that fill in some of the gaps left, not only by family, but also by the host society and state. When grant payments from the vocational colleges are delayed, when social security cannot provide a state funded nanny and when landlords throw out pregnant students, sharing accommodation, babysitting for a peer's baby, and lending money, constitute precarious contributions towards the young mothers' safety nets. Mothers also share tactical information on how to make effective claims on the state to qualify for financial assistance. Although the state automatically sets up paternal enquiries, it does not automatically assist mothers to secure support from the compulsorily registered biological fathers.

Consanguinity, nationality and peer group are not the only criteria for reaching out to the other. The paper examines two accounts of how a chance encounter on the street with a woman from Guinea Bissau and how a conversation in a café with a Portuguese work colleague, resulted in the development of long term relations of care, in which the women assumed kinship roles by becoming godparents to the Cape Verdean babies.