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The social implications of population displacement and resettlement: an overview with a focus on the Arab Middle East.


 Involuntary migration is broadly defined as displacement due to development projects, due to war or political upheaval or persecution, or due to natural disasters. The Middle East is considered as having its share of displacement. Migration of an involuntary nature is not covered very well in the literature. This article focuses on Sudanese or Nubian experiences, the Lebanese civil war, the Palestinian diaspora, and relief efforts. The literature review merges studies of refugee populations, victims of disasters, and relocation into a common theoretical orientation and examines the implications for displacement. Initial studies of population movements are identified as having a focus on the necessity and inevitability of dislocation resulting from development and modernization. Relief efforts receive more attention than group movements, and certain populations are at greater risk of migration. Migration is considered to be a demographic regulator as well as part of a natural process of adaptation. Movement within modernization theory is viewed as healthy and based on Western experiences. Case studies of displaced populations refute some of the assumed beneficial effects. Hansen and Oliver-Smith's articles reveal some of the problems with displacement theories. Attention is drawn to involuntary migration as a social event rather than a passive reaction to events, and several distinctions are made about types of migration and resettlement as a process. A new term for displacement from natural disasters is added (environmental refugees). A number of good case studies on involuntary migration are noted. The author posits that the relationship between push forces and strategies of adaptation should be analyzed as an interactive process that continuously informs decision making on national and local levels. Geographers are recognized by Oliver-Smith as among the first to clarify the role of development in creating environmental hazards. The analyses point to underdevelopment as a condition that forces the poor and most vulnerable to move into vulnerable and hazardous economic and geographic circumstances. The Middle East experience emphasize war refugees. The Nubian experience reflects the unnoticed impact of development and the role of the state. The crossover between labor migration and displacement and the pastoral economy is not adequately addressed.
