Paper short abstract:

Using both kinship and mobility anthropologies, my study asks what keeps together a physically scattered family or society by observing the main role played by flows in it. I use a data of a long term ethnography based on the Santo Antão island and the diasporas of Belgium and Luxembourg.

Paper long abstract:

In what has been called the Cape Verdean « transnational archipelago » [Bathala L. And Carling J, 2008], people and goods keep moving. And they don't seem to be done doing it. What is striking when observing the large variety of « movements » (as sending a drum, distributing candies or even telling a story about leaving in migration) is the wide networks of people they are refered to. These networks involve many places and people, physically moving or not, though related by what one could call a shared imaginary about mobilities. This imaginary is daily noticeable and tells us in fine what « being a family » or « being a society » really means to these people. Refering to my ethnographic experience among the family networks spread (in part) between Santo Antão, Belgium and Luxembourg, I'll intend to show how is transmitted what could be called an « ability to circulate ».