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Accepted Paper:
I don't have money, but I have my people: Ethnographing the life story of a big woman from Guinea-Bissau across the Atlantic
Vinícius Venancio
(Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology)
In this work, I aim to ethnographically describe the story of "Dona Fátima", one of the main figures in the Bissau-Guinean associations in Cape Verde. I want to understand how "big women" are made in this context, based on her trajectory of flows and power of regiment of people.
Paper Abstract:
The phrase "I don't have money, but I have my people" was said to me by Dona Fatima (a fictitious name used to protect the identity of my interlocutor) during one of our conversations in which passers-by repeatedly greeted her with respect and honour. From the use of the vocabulary of kinship to the material honours she received, there were different ways of constructing her distinction. No wonder she was known as the "mother" of the only association of women of Bissau-Guinean origin in Cape Verde.
Dona Fátima's life story has the Atlantic flows at its heart. She began her life as an immigrant in the United States, lived in Cape Verde for about 20 years and then moved to Portugal for health reasons. Based on the conversations and moments shared with this "big woman", the aim of this paper is not only to understand the role she played in the Bissau-Guinean community in Praia, but also to point out the centrality of women in the social reproduction of this community in Cape Verde.
The data presented here comes from my doctoral fieldwork, carried out in Praia (May-November 2022; May and July 2023) and Lisbon (June 2023).