“In poverty we will always stay”: history of famine and contemporary politics of social in-distinction in Cape Verde

Abstract

ABSTRACT Geographically part of West Africa, Cape Verde is a Creole and diasporic nation. This article begins by characterizing contemporary Cape Verde and the connections to the past, integrating history, memory and cultural manifestations. It then probes how Cape Verde developed politically and socioeconomically, paying special attention to urban-rural links and island city dynamics. It studies the situation of Cape Verde as a whole and of people individually to understand Cape Verdeans’ relationship with food and with rurality, along what lines people unite or divide, and to what extent food is susceptible to political opportunism. To answer these related questions, the present article juxtaposes three strands of explanations: the historical and the political; the popular and the nostalgic; and the cultural and the literary. It suggests that Cape Verde is a politically oriented culture that has managed not only to consolidate a common discourse of solidarity, unity, equality and democracy despite material differences but also to reinvent a negative natural heritage for stronger national identity and social relations.