Global Journal of Human Social Science, C: Sociology and Culture, Volume 21 Issue 5

Kola San Jon De Cova Da Moura : An Instrumental Case of Intangible Cultural Heritage Safeguarding in the African Diaspora in Portugal Tchida Afrikanu Abstract- This essay approaches the trajectory of a Cabo Verdean traditional popular festivity, and its implications in the contemporary urban scape of Lisbon, when figured out as a transnational phenomenon that has become one of the greatest challenges in the field of Contemporary Anthropology in current Portuguese society. The Kola San Jon de Cova da Moura is construed as one of the several outcomes of an immigrant associative phenomenon which occurred in the metropolitan area of Lisbon since the 1990s, and whose mobilization has generated a diversity of strategies of struggle, among these, the political and pedagogic use of traditional cultural practices kin to the African immigrants. Throughout an ethnographic immersion, for a period of seven years, the author has apprehended a complex mesh of individual and collective trajectories, experience and individual narratives from persons and social actors committed to the decolonial principle of annulment of prejudice by means of social conviviality, music, and dance, as well as, through the construction of place. The main goal of this essay consists of offering an analytical field to comprehend how the festivities of Kola San Jon de Cova da Moura, while correlating with migrant association agendas and the residents, researchers, and volunteers’ individual activity, privilege the resilient forms of African traditions, while the usual controversies about symbolic contents keep on taking place. The acknowledgement of the festivity of Cape Verdean matrix as intangible cultural heritage in Portugal keeps on stirring up questions, which we look forward to answer throughout this paper. Keywords: kola san jon. labour migration. associativism. traditions of struggle. intangible cultural heritage. Opening note Lisbon city, June 3 rd , 2017. Saturday: 17h00. Early in 2016, the expectations on travelling to Europe had been frustrated. The Entry Visa request had been denied (...). After ordinary procedures at Lisbon airport, we got a taxi. The driver was a man at his 40s, and I was not surprised when I learnt that the music in the car’s audio player was Kuduro (an electronic music and dance gender from Angola, influenced by other music styles like sungura and rap). As soon as I told the driver the destiny’s address, he readily opposed to the idea of driving into Cova da Moura’s neighbourhood, in Buraca. According to him: “that is a violent favela” (slum). I could not believe it. I strongly insisted so that he would give in and accept driving us, at least until the Polidesportivo de Damaia, which is on the 7 th of July Street, one of the neighbourhood’s southern accesses. On the ride, during which we were enjoying the urban landscape and the typical buildings of Lisbon city, when approaching our destination, but still in the neighbourhood of 6 de Maio, we noticed the rubbish of what appeared to be private houses’ demolition. It was all about the program of demolition of “illegal neighbourhoods” carried out by the Municipality of Amadora, said the taxi driver. In his opinion, Lisbon was going through a major restructuring phase, ending with the “bairros de lata” and the “illegal communities” (referring to the self-built poor neighbourhoods, equivalent to slums in Brazil or the bidonvilles built in the outskirts of Paris by Portuguese migrants in the 1960s). I was aware of the ongoing situation. I had been taking notes, surfing social medias, reading papers, journals, and gathering information through whatever means necessary. I was aware of the precarious housing situation by a considerable part of the African immigrant communities in Portugal. But, at that specific moment, listening to the opinions of the Portuguese man behind the taxi’s wheel, I noticed a certain strangeness regarding the way in which the image of these “communities” had been constructed in the imagination of people who, fearfully, were compelled to deal with this situation (research field notes, June 2017). I. I ntroduction his excerpt from research fieldwork notes carries a powerful symbolic value and narrates a situation that played an important role in the decision making, and the consequent reconfiguration and hierarchy of the objectives of the PhD research, concluded in 2020. Once we were in Lisbon, although the process of arrival and entry into the country was fine, the case of the taxi driver's attitude reported above is quite significant and raises serious critical questions around Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) issues in Portugal. One must question whether that was an isolated event, but it will be something I feel compelled to disagree with. That was not an isolated fact, and other examples can be pointed out as well. However, after the chat with the taxi driver, during which he kept reaffirming the idea of the neighbourhood as a “no go zone”, illustrating ghastly scenes, using negative examples (reinforcing: “exactly as it happens in the favelas in Brazil”), we arrived at the place where, according to him: “from now on, I don't cross. It’s dangerous.” We paid the fare and got out of the taxi. He helped with the luggage, said goodbye, and left. We stand in front of the Águas Livres Sports Centre, commonly called Ringue by the residents. We stood next to my Son Jon 's drum and T Volume XXI Issue V Version I 1 ( ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2021 C © 2021 Global Journals Author: e-mail: tchida.pesquisa@gmail.com