A Socio-Economy of Cape Verdeans’ Mutual-Help Circulation on the Lisbon Periphery

Abstract

Amidst a backdrop of commodity exchange and economic inequality, Cape Verdean labor immigrants circulate “gifts” of mutual help in order to ensure their horizontal mobility on the Lisbon periphery. This mutual-help circulation tends to deal with “commodities” that would otherwise be inaccessible or unaffordable: “good” childcare, home-building assistance, interestfree credit, and job-market placement. Obligation to kin and friends can often camouflage the economic relations of these practices. Even though similar goods and services “appear” to be available for purchase on the Lisbon periphery, the giving and receiving of mutual help is thickly woven into relationships governed more by trust and proximity than by contracts or market relations. Thus, one cannot simply determine the value of mutual help, for it does not replace products existing in the market.