Being Co-present in a Whirlpool of Gossip: Neighborhood Relations among Women in Mozambique Island

Abstract

In Mozambique Island, a tiny island on the Indian Ocean, gossip is pervasive among women in the neighborhood. In discussions of gossip in cultural anthropology, structural functionalists stress its function to maintain order in society through sanctioning one’s behavior, while transactionalists emphasize the intentions of the gossipers, which can cause disharmony. However, this dichotomy may not accurately capture the picture, since the consequences of gossip can always be temporary and unfinished. This paper aims to show how island women are able to be co-present with neighbors in this small, densely populated island with intense gossip. Even though island women are embedded in such intimate neighborhood relations, where neighbors have strong interests in others and seek connection with them to exchange food, and where gossip is a major interest to them as well as a concern to those about whom it circulates, people tend to ignore the outcomes of gossip and do not care too gravely about gossip against themselves. What enables these attitudes is, firstly, the unique social space of co-presence in the island; neighborhood relations are densely knit, but they are also fragmented into small groups with fluid and changeable boundaries, making the circles of gossip temporary and uncertain. Further, although the island women seek connections with neighbors, they have an attitude of not giving themselves too freely to others nor requiring full trust or strong emotional connection with them. They are what maintain the co-presence of women in densely populated neighborhoods, through dissolving the functions and intentions of gossip, making them uncertain.