Movement, home and identity: dilemmas of urban internal displacement in Kampala, Uganda

Abstract

The conflict that ravaged Northern Uganda for two decades led to displacement of nearly two million northern Ugandans. The majority remained within the country borders fleeing into IDP camps, towns and cities. This thesis explores urban IDPs’ practices in a migration process and, furthermore, how this process is influencing the notion of home and identity which in turn have an impact on the discussion on solutions to displacement. The empirical data in this thesis were collected in Acholi Quarter, Kampala, using qualitative methods in a period of three months from August to beginning of November 2012.

Some of the urban IDPs first moved into camps and then later migrated further to Kampala, while others moved directly to the city. However, common for all migrants was the importance of the social network as a factor enabling them to migrate. Many years away from their place of origin has made them adopt new strategies in order to survive in the urban context. The ‘new’ life in Kampala has inevitably influenced their notion of home and identity. It was a difference between the younger and the older generation’s understanding of home as they related to the past, present and future in a different way. Their identities changed accordingly in a frequent negotiation involving choices of accommodation or resistance of new worldviews. The impact of the changing notion of home and identity has led to an ambivalent attitude to return.