Resilience and Reconstruction in Practice

This post is the final installment in a four-part series based on a 2023 qualitative study conducted by The Fund for Armenians Relief’s (FAR) Child Protection Center (CPC) to explore the psychological and social dynamics of forced displacement, using Armenia’s integration of over 115,000 displaced persons from Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) as a contemporary case study.

Continuity as Psychological Protection

At the cultural level, resilience depends on the continuity of identity. For many Artsakh Armenians, maintaining symbolic ties to their homeland is not resistance to change but protection against erasure.

“Why should we give up passports and lose the last connection to our homeland?” one participant asked .Nadav Shelef¹ might call this “ethnoterritorial identity continuity” — an aspiration to maintain a territorial connection even in the case of its physical loss:

“Since homelands are a nationalist form of territoriality, their physical contours have to be clearly articulated and continually demarcated. As a result, nationalists exert tremendous energy to maintain, if sometimes banally, the territorial boundaries of the homeland.”

For many participants, protesting against the change to their passports is a form of resistance to the injustice committed against them. A passport is a symbol of “Homeland” for displaced people. As Dawn Chatty² suggests, “’Home’ and ‘homeland’ are ‘one of the most powerful unifying symbols for the dispossessed.'”

Findings suggest that this continuity serves as an anchor. Instead of hindering integration, it provides stability that enables adaptation. Resilience here is built by:

• Allowing dual belonging
• Validating attachment to lost places
• Avoiding premature identity replacement

Clinical work that pushes rapid identity reformation risks invalidating grief and destabilizing already fragile coherence.

Work, Contribution, and the Restoration of Worth

Meaningful contribution emerges as one of the strongest predictors of long-term resilience. Displaced Artsakh Armenians described working in public service, construction, utilities, education, and security roles. One participant summarized it simply: “We serve where needed—police, military, maintenance crews.”

This aligns with Sennett’s (2003)³ framework of mutual respect, in which dignity arises from recognized competence rather than sympathy. Resilience through work is built by:

• Opportunities for visible contribution
• Recognition of skill rather than need
• Shifting narratives from dependency to participation

Institutional capacity to organize an effective response directly determines whether displaced persons are seen and heard. The limited number of helping professionals in both community and state services, the lack of proactive engagement, and inconsistent levels of professional competence and preparedness all undermine both the right to be heard and the fulfillment of needs.

The spectrum of available support—ranging from basic time allocation to therapeutic intervention—is directly contingent on achieving an adequate ratio of helping professionals to displaced persons.

Building Resilience in Practice

This research points to clear, actionable steps for clinicians and social-work professionals working with displaced communities around the world:

• Create roles, not just services. Teaching, mentoring, and leadership restore presence and recognition.
• Support dual belonging. Integration is strengthened when past and present identities coexist.
• Prioritize institutional visibility. Listening, presence, and response matter as much as policy outcomes.
• Shift from individual to environmental modes. Symptoms often reflect environmental strain rather than personal pathology.

Survival, Renewal, and Resilience

Efforts to preserve identity are both natural and necessary. Focus group participants described a recent large-scale event showcasing Artsakh culture—song and dance, performers, and artists presenting their work reimagined for life in Armenia. Though permeated with tears and suffering and carrying simultaneous feelings of longing and joy, the event conveyed no explicit message yet brought profound relief to all who attended. It served as an _expression_ of collective mourning, an assertion of continued existence—fittingly titled, “We Exist.”

For participants, however, affirming identity does not mean refusing the present. As one person explained: “I try to live in the present, not by rejecting the past, but by keeping it alive—in my dreams, my thoughts, my stories, and my relationships. This is what allows me to feel grounded and true to myself.”

What emerges from Armenia is not merely adaptation but social innovation under pressure. Displacement forces both newcomers and host communities to renegotiate identity, responsibility, and belonging in real time.

One of Us

The integration of Artsakh Armenians into Armenian society presents not only humanitarian challenges but also sociopolitical and economic challenges that require comprehensive, long-term approaches. The adaptability of the host society’s institutional and social structures and the resilience potential of Artsakh Armenians together can create what has been termed “social reconfiguration” — a reorganization of society that offers new opportunities for social and economic development where the main challenge is transformed into an opportunity for collective development and empowerment.

This process of reforming the collective identity of Armenians, recognizing the multi-level nature of national identity (David & Bar-Tal, 2009)⁴, can lead to a more inclusive and resilient national conception in which the Artsakh experience is incorporated into the broader structure of national history and identity.

For practitioners working in contexts of global displacement, be it in Ukraine, Sudan, or Gaza, the lesson is clear: Resilience is not located solely in individuals. The ultimate answer to the question “One of us or…?” is cultivated through systems, relationships, and meaning over time. And it is only through the often indelicate acceptance of the tension arising from humanitarian, sociopolitical, and economic reconfiguration that both host communities and displaced persons find true, lasting integration.