Creole chronotopes: the convergences of time and place in becoming black

Abstract

The emergence of Kriolu or Cape Verdean Creole as a black identity should be understood in terms of chronotope, a dynamic iteration that combines time and place in the name of collective identity. The case of Cape Verdean migrants in Lisbon, Portugal contributes to current debates on blackness as a 'becoming' and a complex set of practices by underscoring the role of encounters, both mundane and structural, in racialized formations. I draw from my fieldwork with Cape Verdean rappers and archival research in Lisbon between 2007 and 2013 to suggest that the particularities of Kriolu hold general theoretical lessons on the importance of migrancy and, by extension, space and temporality, in the process of racialization.