Voicing diasporic subjects: funaná and the expressive economy of badiu Cape Verdean masculinity in Lisbon

Funaná, a Cape Verdean music anddance genre formed in the island of Santiago in the late Nineteenth Century,travelled to Portugal with the first waves of labour migrations from thatisland in the early 1970s. In contrast with other Cape Verdean music and danceexpressions performed in the country, made publicly visible through theircirculation across the world music and Lusofonia markets, funaná’s performancehas been primarily confined to the participatory contexts of community, kinshipand friendship taking place in the predominantly Cape Verdean neighborhoods ofthe Greater Lisbon Area. In the paper I address the role played by funaná’sexpressive practices in the articulation of Santiaguense (or badiu) diasporicidentities. I place the genre’s performance within a transnational social fieldconnecting Santiago’s interior, Cape Verde’s capital Praia, Lisbon and otherlocations of the Cape Verdean diaspora in Europe. I focus on the cultural workperformed by funaná’s poetics, aesthetics and socialities in shaping aracialized masculinity shared by Santiaguense labour migrants in Portugal.