ABSTRACT
Labour migrancy has shaped the lives of everyone in Luoland over the twentieth century. Most men worked as migrants at some time in their lives; many women moved to town to join their husbands or to find work. Differentiation is a central part of the story of social change in Luoland, but it is a complicated story. There are several reasons for this. In the first place it is difficult to see the full picture from the rural end of a migrant labour economy. In the early part of the narrative that follows, stories from the generation born before 1930 tell how some people accumulated resources, achieved upward mobility and managed to transmit some economic advantages to their children. By the 1980s, the only significant accumulation was going on in the cities. The transmission of economic advantage within lineages had happened, but it was by no means automatic.
