Alienation and belonging appeared side by side in a study of resettled Nubians, with the largest of four groups identified by the analysis reporting the highest average levels of alienation, cultural identity and psychological belonging. It contained 115 people, or 30.1% of the survey sample. Because the study was cross-sectional, meaning it measured people at one point in time, the finding shows a statistical pattern, not that one experience caused another.
Distress did not follow one pattern
Responses elsewhere in the survey showed why a single adjustment story would be misleading. Exploratory factor analysis identified four underlying dimensions of displacement-related distress. Persistent alienation was reported by 34.6% of participants, while 44.2% reported a loss of inner security. Social isolation was constant for 14.4%, intermittent for 45.8% and absent for 39.8%.
The identity results were mixed as well. Partial identity loss was reported by 47.9%, while 48.2% said they were actively preserving the Nubian language. On acceptance in the new environment, 48.2% said they were sometimes accepted, 38.2% felt accepted and 13.6% experienced consistent rejection. The pattern points to belonging that was often conditional rather than settled.
Nostalgia carried both distress and a sense of continuity in the paper's account. Nearly half of respondents, 46.6%, believed psychological comfort would never return to pre-displacement levels. Qualitative accounts were interpreted as showing that continuing memory work could serve as resistance to assimilation for some participants.
What the researchers measured
Researchers combined three data streams: a face-to-face survey of 382 adults, 30 key-informant interviews and 30 in-depth interviews. The questionnaire had 20 items, used three response points and produced four composite scales for the quantitative analysis. Survey sampling was stratified and household-based, with systematic selection from local household registries and proportional allocation across villages. Key informants were selected to provide varied institutional and historical viewpoints.
The sample also complicates what displacement experience means here. Of the 382 survey respondents, 42.1% were aged 31 to 45 and 27.5% were aged 46 to 60. The paper says these groups were born after the relocation and did not directly experience it. The findings therefore describe a community in which many views were formed after resettlement, not only by firsthand experience of the original move.
The statistical links were not causal
To examine how the measures related to one another, the researchers used regression analysis. The model accounted for 10.4% of the variation in psychological belonging. Alienation showed the strongest positive association with belonging, cultural identity showed a smaller positive association, and social-support loss was not statistically significant. In other words, higher alienation scores tended to occur alongside higher belonging scores in this sample, but the result does not say that alienation created belonging.
The researchers then tested whether cultural identity and alienation were statistically connected in more complex ways. In the cultural identity to alienation to belonging model, the indirect association was significant, with alienation accounting for 26.5% of the statistical association. The strength of the alienation-belonging association also varied by cultural identity: it was stronger at lower levels of reported cultural identity than at higher levels. These tests describe how the measures moved together; they do not establish a causal pathway or show how the relationship changed over time.
Education level and marital status were associated with differences across the psychological scales, while age, gender and family size were not significant in the multivariate analysis. The cluster analysis likewise found four adaptation groups rather than a single profile. Taken together, the results suggest that the community's experience was not uniform, though the groups are statistical patterns from this sample.
A snapshot, not a verdict
The study's design sets a firm boundary around its conclusions. Quantitative relationships were treated as associations rather than causal or temporal evidence. The survey used a three-point response scale, and the qualitative interviews were coded thematically after de-identification. These choices make the results a description of reported patterns, not a measure of how those patterns changed over time.
Taken together, the findings describe a community in which cultural attachment, alienation and belonging can coexist. They should not be read as evidence that forced displacement caused any one outcome or that cultural identity determines belonging. The study offers a snapshot of associations that would need to be followed over time to show how identity and belonging develop.
Paper data and sources
Original title: Long-term psychological consequences of forced displacement: identity and belonging in Egypt’s resettled Nubian community
Authors: Abdelaziz S, Han X, Alam E, Shi G
Journal/Repository: Frontiers in psychology
Status: Peer-reviewed
First online: 2026-10-08
DOI: Not available
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