Post-ISIL reconciliation in Iraq and the local anatomy of national grievances: the case of Yathrib

The incentive for international agencies to promote ‘local’ peacebuilding is commonly premised on the hope that micro-level interventions can nourish grassroots activism and participatory citizenship. Tracing reconciliation processes across Iraq following defeat of ISIL provides a window through which view transactional relationships between ‘national’ forms politics, conflict peace in post-Ba’athist Iraq. This paper focuses example Yathrib, Salah al-Din province, where over ninety per cent residents were displaced 2014, an estimated eighty-five subsequently returned negotiations. uses qualitative interview findings demonstrate one hand seemingly tribal solutions are built into national-level ‘peace strategies’, while other, state capture power politics infused management apparently parochial disputes. While these observations not indictment efforts intervene at subnational level, they serve thoroughly ‘de-romanticise’ local.