Paper short abstract:

For many young people in Uganda labour migration has become a part of growing up. We trace the experience of 12 young male and female migrants (aged 17-24 years) over their first year in a town in southern Uganda. For nearly all, making friends was a marker of beginning to feel they belonged.

Paper long abstract:

For many young people in Uganda labour migration has become a part of growing up. A young person may look for work repairing vehicles, selling foodstuffs, doing domestic work or serving in a bar or restaurant. They may not move far, but it is still a move away from a place they belong, where family members live. While some move to stay with a relative, or a friend already in the new place, others may have few if any contacts and need to `make it’ for themselves. For young migrants the route to economic independence may be precarious, even for those who have people they know nearby when a job cannot be found or wages are not paid, or new friends exploit a newcomer’s naïveté, leading perhaps to sexual exploitation or expensive gambling bills. In this paper we trace the experience of 12 young male and female migrants (aged 17-24 years) over their first year in a town in southern Uganda. Finding friends who could help find jobs, lend them money and be around to relax with, fulfilled an expressed need to belong. That friendship was often based on a shared interest in sport or through their place of work; these friends were not necessarily people with whom they shared much about their lives. Even so, 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.