By Elizabeth Stites. Humanitarian Exchange, December 2006.
In March and April 2006, a research team from Tufts University’s Feinstein International Center carried out a study on livelihoods and human security in three areas of Kitgum district in Northern Uganda: the Orom trading centre/IDP camp and surrounding parishes, the Agoro trading centre/IDP camp and nearby villages, and Labuje IDP camp and Pager village. The team used qualitative research methods, including in-depth, semi-structured, open-ended interviews with different categories of households, key informants with clan leaders, IDP camp leaders, medical personnel in the camps, NGO and UN officials and military officials, direct observation and participant observation. This article reports the main findings of the study as they relate to people’s use of movement as a livelihood and protective strategy. The article that follows draws on the same piece of research to explore more closely the issue of domestic violence against women in Northern Uganda’s displacement camps.