Revisiting the Debate on People, Place, Identity and Displacement

The human need to belong is more than one for protection or for the means of individual development. ..it is normally a strong human need, the satisfaction of which is conducive to individual and social well-being and the denial of which is conducive to suffering... A 'people' is formed by physical propinquity, a native soil and a shared history that has formed common beliefs and values (i.e. its culture or civilization) and conferred on it an identity. The link between a people and a land is a profound one