By extending their voyages to all oceans from the 1760s onward, whaling vessels from North America and Europe spanned a novel net of hunting grounds, maritime routes, supply posts, and transport chains across the globe. For obtaining provisions, cutting firewood, recruiting additional men, and transshipping whale products, these highly mobile hunters regularly frequented coastal places and islands along their routes, which were largely determined by the migratory movements of their prey. American-style pelagic whaling thus constituted a significant, though often overlooked factor in connecting people and places between distant world regions during the long nineteenth century. Focusing on Africa, this book investigates side-effects resulting from stopovers by whalers for littoral societies on the economic, social, political, and cultural level. For this purpose it draws on eight local case studies, four from Africa's west coast and four from its east coast. In the overall picture, the book shows a broad range of effects and side-effects of different forms and strengths, which it figures as a "grey undercurrent" of global history.

ABSTRACT: Abstract As apertadas medidas regulatorias dos fluxos migratorios que se seguiram ao 11 de Setembro nos espacos europeu e americano alteraram fundamentalmente a mobilidade intrarregional na Africa Ocidental. O que nao alteraram, contudo, foram as aspiracoes de milhares de pessoas que continuam a querer partir - e que, em grande medida, ainda o fazem. Esta tese analisa o posicionamento do arquipelago de Cabo Verde como ponto crucial de transito numa das rotas possiveis seguidas por tantos africanos do continente a caminho da Europa. Sugere-se aqui que as ilhas terao recentemente evoluido de espaco transiente a espaco liminar, frequentemente traduzido na sua aceitacao como forcoso destino final para projectos migratorios individuais. O estudo aborda os primordios do debate publico sobre o fenomeno da imigracao, e a forma como este debate participa das construcoes identitarias, dos idearios de desenvolvimento economico, e da propria formulacao de politicas migratorias ainda em fase embrionaria. Propoe-se aqui que as ilhas de Cabo Verde sejam entendidas nao como um espaco em si mesmo, mas como um nodulo num sistema migratorio global, fortemente afectado pelas transformacoes e volubilidades da geopolitica europeia. Sugere-se, ainda, que as politicas europeias de externalizacao de dilemas migratorios vem gradualmente empurrando as fronteiras conceptuais (e de facto) do continente para Sul e Sudoeste ate as costas africanas entre Marrocos e Cabo Verde. Nesta perspectiva, o estudo de Cabo Verde afigura-se representativo das dinamicas vigentes na vizinhanca da Uniao Europeia, e um pouco por todo o mundo. Utilizando um quadro teorico pos-colonial, este estudo avanca um modelo alternativo de avaliacao dos mecanismos de inclusao e de exclusao, na tentativa de investigar as caracteristicas integrativas deste e de outros espacos transicionais africanos. ------- ENGLISH------- Stringent post-9/11 American and European immigration regulations changed the migratory map of West Africa. They did not, however, alter the aspirations of thousands who still wish to depart - and do. This thesis analyses Cape Verde's pivotal position as a transhipment centre for continental African migrants in transit to Europe, suggesting the islands have become a liminal space and, often, an imposed final destination for individual migratory projects. The study discusses the early stages of public engagement with immigration, and how the debate is affecting the construction of identity, ideas about national development, and immigration policy itself. It suggests the islands be understood within a global migratory context that encompasses the changing geopolitics of Europe, positing - from a geopolitical perspective - that immigration policies in the EU have pushed Europe's de facto borders westwards and southwards to the West African coast between Morocco and Cape Verde. Using a postcolonial theoretical framework, this study proposes an innovative model of inclusion and exclusion to understand the integrative features of transitional spaces.