`I now have so many friends!’ how young migrants describe their quest to belong in a town in southern Uganda

ABSTRACT

For many young people in Uganda, labour migration has become a part of growing up. They may not move far, but it is still a move away from a place they belong. For young migrants, the route to economic independence may be precarious, even for those who have people they know nearby. We trace the experience of 12 young male and female migrants (aged 17–24 years) over their first year as a migrant in southern Uganda. Finding friends who could help find jobs, lend them money and be around to relax with, fulfiled an expressed need to belong. That friendship was often based on a shared interest in sport or through their place of work. In a setting where all the young people had at some point experienced hunger, insecurity and a fear of failing to make it, those friendships were a marker of beginning to feel they belonged.

KEYWORDS:

• Migration
• youth
• precarity
• friendship
• employment
• East Africa

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank all the participants who contributed their time and effort to the study. We thank Stella Nakate and Patricia Nabimanya and Irene Namugwanya for their invaluable contributions to the study. A version of this paper was presented at the Association of Social Anthropologists conference on 14^th April 2023 (Panel 26) – we are grateful to those who attended that panel for helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Population statistics are taken from the most recent census in 2014 and population projections provided by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (SAPs_Central_Region.xlsx (live.com)).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by funding from UK Foreign and Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), UK Medical Research Council (MRC) Adolescent Health call 2018 grant (MR/S023607/1). This work was also supported by the UK Medical Research Council (MRC) and the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) under the MRC/FCDO Concordat agreement and also part of the EDCTP2 programme supported by the European Union.

Notes on contributors

Janet Seeley

Janet Seeley, PhD, is Professor of Anthropology and Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Before joining LSHTM in April 2014, she was Professor of International Development at the University of East Anglia. She worked for the Department for International Development (formerly ODA and now FCDO) as a social development adviser for 13 years (1987-2000). Over the past 40 years, Janet has led research in Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, Malawi, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, South Africa and Papua New Guinea on the social aspects of health and wellbeing, migration and mobility, ageing, poverty and gender. In recent years a particular focus has been the health of mobile young people in East and Southern Africa.

Rachel Kawuma

Rachel Kawuma, MA, is a social scientist based at the MRC/UVRI & LSHTM Uganda Research Unit. Over the years, she has engaged in research answering questions about social aspects across the life course. This includes research with key and vulnerable populations like adolescents and young people from which this paper is written. Her research interests are in HIV disease prevention, care and treatment as well sexual reproductive health.

Edward Tumwesige

Edward Tumwesige is a Social Science Research Team Leader at the MRC/UVRI & LSHTM Uganda Research Unit. His research interests relate to subjects such as migration, the social determinants of health, and the health-seeking behaviour of different age groups. He has also conducted research on the development of schistosomiasis and HIV vaccines in Uganda.

Allen Asiimwe

Allen Asiimwe is a Social Science Research Team Leader at the MRC/UVRI & LSHTM Uganda Research Unit., She has worked for the past 10 years on projects which focus on adolescent and youth health, particularly on HIV risk and migration. She is actively contributing to designing adolescent-friendly interventions for improved healthcare access.

Chloe Lanyon

Chloe Lanyon, MPH, is a General Practitioner in the United Kingdom National Health Service and mixed-methods researcher trained at the University of Sydney, specialising in global public health. Her primary clinical and academic interests are in inclusion healthcare, and evidence-based approaches to address health inequalities through policy and practice.

Sarah Bernays

Sarah Bernays, PhD, is an Associate Professor at the School of Public Health, University of Sydney, Australia and at the Global Health and Development, London School of Hygiene and Medicine, United Kingdom. At the University of Sydney, she is the co-Director of the Masters of Global Health programme, where she teaches about the structural drivers of health, community-engaged research and qualitative methods. Most of her research is in adolescent sexual and reproductive health in Southern Africa, with an overarching focus on supporting community’s engagement in infectious disease prevention and care.