Andrew State
Sociology
University of Minnesota

I am a graduate student at the University of Minnesota, Department of Sociology. I was born and brought up in a rural setting in Uganda. With all my pre-university education in a rural setting, it is no wonder that I have seen and experienced life in a community that relies on itself through network connections. After obtaining my B.A. (Honors) in Sociology from Makerere University, Kampala, I started my teaching and research career in the Department of Sociology, Makerere University as an Assistant Lecturer. I later obtained an M.A in sociology at Makerere, was appointed lecturer, and continued in the same position until I left for doctoral work at the University of Minnesota. While studying and teaching at Makerere, I got involved in many academic and administrative projects. I conducted numerous research projects and assessments sponsored by local governments, the World Bank, and USAID, among others. My significant publications are “Implication of the Urban Housing Policy in Uganda: Displacement and Relocation in Namuwongo Upgrading and Low Cost Housing Project, Kampala” in MAWAZO (7):2:1-7, December 1997. Also, “Urban Displacement and Relocation in Namuwongo” in Involuntary Resettlement and Rehabilitation papers, Environment and Natural Resources Division, Economic Development Institute of the World Bank, 1995, Pp. 81-90.

My research examines the lives of ordinary people whose livelihoods are invisible and whose voices are unheard of very often yet there is a lot of talk about them in development literature. There is little information on how they construct their day-to-day activities through myriad ways and employ innumerable efforts to do what they do over time. I focus more on how livelihoods are constructed, structured, and formed, produced and reproduced across generations. I am also interested in how livelihood patterns change temporally and spatially because of migration processes and how people diversify their capacities and capabilities, both tangible and intangible), in order to cope with risk, seasonality, and other adverse factors in agriculture, to achieve sustainable rural livelihoods. In addition, livelihoods are dynamic, ever changing, and are experienced in different ways depending on location, power structures, ethnicity, gender, etc. therefore, I focus on contexts that facilitate or block mobility of rural individual’s and family’s ability to find alternative means of adequate self-support. My main aim is to show that people’s own social capital networks help them adopt particular livelihood patterns and strategies as they fight to alleviate poverty and promote sustainable rural development in the developing world.

I will conduct my fieldwork in Bushenyi, Kyenjojo, and Kibaale districts, western Uganda. I want to examine the differences and similarities among the sites concerning livelihood patterns and strategies adopted.

Dissertation Topic: Social Networks, Forms of Capital and Livelihood Patterns and Strategies in Rural Uganda: A Comparative Study of Kyenjojo, Bushenyi, and Kibaale Districts