Um filho para duas mães?: Notas sobre a maternidade em Cabo Verde

Abstract

Studies about African kinship which discuss relationships between generations are not new in Anthropology, be the approaches classical, focusing on the institutional structure of kinship systems, or contemporary analyses, which insert the topic in the context of relations constructed in everyday life. In the case of Cape Verde, in order to understand the central role of women and the relations among women for reproduction of family relations, the part of grandmothers cannot be overlooked. With this argument, this article seeks to show how motherhood, as it is seen in Cape Verde, is not restricted to the mother figure, involving other women in the sharing of substances which are essential for everyday life - food, bed, house, goods and values. In this context an important strategy arises which makes motherhood in Cape Verde a particular case, the fact that one generation is not sufficient for full realization of maternity, since it requires coordinated efforts of two generations of women within the family structure. Mother and grandmother complement each other in the task of caring for and feeding children and this union provides the local sense of what a child needs in order to be happy and supported. Likewise, exercising maternity in both stages of life fulfills motherhood for a woman. This article thus presents the argument that being a mother in Cape Verde is a cycle which starts with the birth of a child and is only fully completed when the woman becomes a grandmother.