Effects of drastic changes in living environment on migrant families and communities

Immigrants and displaced persons generally experience drastic changes in their living environment. This is manifested in their necessity of moving from their rural living environment to a high rise apartment building in the city. Such changes were found to have a profound impact on families and on the community. Objectives of this study were to understand the implications of forced transfer of a community to a different ecological environment, and assess the effects of such an environmental change on the community's sociological structure and on restructuring people’s cultural identity. Igelhart used cultural shifts to describe cultural changes. In the Kfar Darom community, changes noticed in the ecological environment had caused significant changes in the community's social structure, as well as restructuring people's personal, family, communal, religious and ideological identities. Thus collective characteristics that once united and strengthened a community's social structure had dwindled, while individualistic characteristics that weaken and disintegrate the social structure of a community became stronger. Insight derived in this study was based on in depth interviews with evacuees and with officials who were in touch with the community before and after evacuation.