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Paper short abstract:

I will focus on one multi-ethnic village located on the east side of Lake Albert. I will present the migration pattern and people's micro-level strategies to construct their life-world while they have been affected by heterogeneity and diversity of language and economic activity.

Paper long abstract:

Fish and water, the natural resources of Lake Albert in Uganda, attract people from a wide range of areas—West Nile, the DRC, and Rwanda. I will focus on one multi-ethnic village, called R village, a fishing community located on the east side of the lake and belongs to Hoima District, the centre of the Nyoro Kingdom; hence, the locals predominantly constitute the Bagungu of Bunyoro descent. Presently, however, 80% of the people are Alur who migrate from West Nile and the DRC. and have multiple living bases during their lifetime. Moreover some family of Bararoo and Banyrwanda (cattle keeper) migrated from Kasese in Uganda and Rwanda If we trace their trajectory, we find that there are some patterns of migration.

From the migration patterns I am able to identify two social factors, other than economic activity. (1) Attraction of migrant labour to Buganda in the 1930s for the purpose of cotton & coffee plantation, and (2) Evacuation of people due to wars: the Mulele War of 1964, the Museveni Battle of 1984-85, and the Civil War of 1997-2002 in the DRC. All these migrations were motivated by the desire for survival, in order to pursue "sauce and space".

Although there is inequality of interface between the Bagungu, the Bararoo, the Banyarwanda and the Alur, translation is always demanded by people attending the public meeting. Here we can see the germination of interface between different ethnic groups, as they try to understand each other. I would like to say that this kind of cooperation, which appears through necessity, is a feature of this life-world. This is the occasional cooperative construction of spaces where people are getting together.