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Tripartheid: How Sectarianism Became Internal to Being in Anbar, Iraq
Author(s) -
Rubaii Kali J.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
polar: political and legal anthropology review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.529
H-Index - 27
eISSN - 1555-2934
pISSN - 1081-6976
DOI - 10.1111/plar.12278
Subject(s) - sectarianism , politics , ethnography , meaning (existential) , oppression , population , gender studies , ethnology , sociology , everyday life , geography , political science , law , anthropology , demography , psychology , psychotherapist
How do aspects of identities previously marginal to everyday life become crystallized as the basis for sorting out who lives, who dies, and the degree to which diverse coexistence is possible or even desirable? As a result of divide‐and‐rule policies introduced by the United States after 2003, Iraq saw rapid segmentation of its population into three geographic parts: a Sunni west, a Shi'a south, and a Kurdish north. Ethnographic fieldwork with families in and from Anbar demonstrates how sectarian identities were crystalized in the vision of the global war on terror, as certain places and the people from there were tagged with political meaning. In spite of historical oppression of minorities and Shi'a, it was not until the forced repetition of particular policies that the political categorization of people by sect became a social fact among Sunni communities in Anbar Province. Thus, difference became internal to being in subtle ways that demonstrate a more complex picture of what sectarianism actually means in Iraq and beyond.