'Village Life is Better Than Town Life': Identity, Migration, and Development in the Lives of Ugandan Child Citizens

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Periodical article

Title:	'Village Life is Better Than Town Life': Identity, Migration, and Development in the Lives of Ugandan Child Citizens
Author:	Cheney, Kristen E.
Year:	2004
Periodical:	African Studies Review
Volume:	47
Issue:	3
Period:	December
Pages:	1-22
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Uganda
Subjects:	identity children rural-urban relations Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Urbanization and Migration History and Exploration Development and Technology Education and Oral Traditions Politics and Government
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/1514940
Abstract:	This article contextualizes Ugandan urban-rural relations through urban children's knowledge, imaginations, and experiences, which are affected by the present sociohistoric moment in Uganda. Influenced by urban-rural migration, changing notions of family and kinship, and the national government's 'development-through-education' campaign, urban schoolchildren imagine 'the village' both as an integral imaginary space of ethnic identity origination and a location for fulfilment of national citizenship through development. The article is based on anthropological fieldwork conducted at primary schools in Kampala during 2000-2001. The focus of the research was on the ways in which children act as discursive objects in relation to the nationbuilding project under way in Uganda. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French. [Journal abstract]