Centro de Estudos Internacionais do Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL)
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