Concepts and criteria of internally displaced persons’ adaptation and integration and terms of idp status withdrawal
The exact meanings of the notions “IDP adaptation” and “IDP integration” despite their active use in academic and practically-oriented literature and state regulations still remain uncertain. The article aims to clarify the content of the notions of “adaptation” and “integration” of IDPs, doing it both in theoretical and empirical dimensions.
The article also examines another practical issue closely associated with a public policy – what terms should be used in decision to withdraw the IDPs status. The academic periodicals and UNHCR manuals were the most important source for the study. The analysis of the sources demonstrated that different scientific disciplines, depending on the focus of their research interests, put different aspects in the center of study of IDP adaptation and integration. However, there can be identified two theoretical and methodological approaches that cross disciplinary boundaries of the certain social sciences.
We offer to call these approaches as socio-cultural and resource (-oriented). As a part of the socio-cultural approach IDP adaptation is seen as an overcoming of the shock of cultural environment change and the process by which displaced person is used to a different culture, including the construction of the mode of the coexistence of IDP’s identity with the identities of other groups. According to the resource(-oriented) approach, adaptation is seen as the process by which information about the existence, accessibility and ways of getting relevant resources needed in the new place of residence is obtained. Within the socio-cultural approach IDP integration is interpreted as a convergence of IDPs’ and host communities identities, and within the resource (-oriented) approach it is seen as an establishment of IDPs and host communities resource sharing.
The resource(-oriented) approach seems to be more relevant to the current situation in Ukraine. The differences in the volume of resources between the IDPs differentiate the majority of IDPs more significantly than culture and identity do
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