The Civilians’ Dilemma: How Religious and Ethnic Minorities Survived the Islamic State Occupation of Northern Iraq

ABSTRACT How did Iraq’s ethnic and religious minorities survive the Islamic State (ad-Dawlah al-Islāmiyah, IS) occupation of Ninewa Governorate? Existing accounts of wartime survival either essentialize social identity or ignore it altogether by reducing survival to cost-benefit calculations or political opportunism. Against the conventional wisdom, this article argues that individuals survive conflict by drawing on repertoires – consisting of practices, tools, organized routines, symbols, and rhetorical strategies – to navigate violent situations. Distinct from deliberate calculations or rational strategies, repertoires are creative, flexible, and often contradictory. The author examines Iraqis’ reliance on survival repertoires through a mixed-methods research design of observational data and fieldwork. This study begins by analyzing migration patterns recorded in the United Nation’s Displacement Tracking Matrix. To understand how Iraqis who remained survived the conflict, this work draws on original interviews with Iraqi peacebuilders from minority communities. While most minorities fled during the IS offensive of June 2014, those who remained pursued various forms of cooperation, contention, and neutrality. This research finds that those who remained survived the conflict by mobilizing self-defense groups and by their coordination with members of the anti-IS coalition. Opportunistic collaboration with IS insurgents during the initial stages of the occupation was less common. In areas where the Iraqi Security Forces (al-Quwāt al-Maslahah al-ʿIrāqiyya, ISF) or Peshmerga were absent, residents mobilized community militias unaligned from Baghdād or Arbīl. The findings of this research provide insights for scholars and practitioners interested in peacebuilding, transitional justice, and post-conflict reconstruction in fragile states.