Abstract
The attacks carried out in the Shingal Region of northern Iraq by the so-called Islamic State uprooted almost the entire Yezidi community from their homeland in 2014. Most Yazidis sought refuge in Iraqi Kurdistan, an autonomous region in northern Iraq. In my dissertation, I trace the lived experiences and quotidian deliberations of internally displaced Yezidis living in an interstitial space between transnational humanitarian regimes of care and Iraqi sectarian politics. In focusing on the category of “internally displaced minority,” I ask: what does it mean to be a citizen while living on the brink of statelessness? Although internally displaced persons (IDPs), such as Yezidis, maintain their citizenship and reside within national borders, displacement places them in a liminal spatiotemporal state in which they are neither refugees nor fully citizens. As internally displaced persons, Yezidis have been grappling with the challenges of restoring their rights within Iraq, while simultaneously engaging with normative humanitarian ideas about refugeeness, displacement, and human rights. Using the experiences of internally displaced Yezidis, the research demonstrates that not only does internal displacement generate a different kind of dynamic between humanitarian agencies, state organizations, and displaced populations from other contexts; but it also entails “coexisting temporalities” in which IDPs must continuously navigate between multiple positionings. I demonstrate how shifting between being “Yezidis,” “Yezidi Kurds,” “genocide survivors,” “religious minorities,” or “victims of sexual violence,” enacts alternative possibilities and changing prospects within the everchanging fields of power at the national, and international levels. Finally, I argue that this spatial and temporal liminality of IDPness has created a new sense of belonging among displaced Yezidis, which fluctuates between striving to restore Iraqi citizenship while simultaneously seeking recognition as cosmopolitan citizens.