The ritualization of heritage destruction under the Islamic State

Abstract

This article develops the conceptual framework of the ritualization of heritage destruction to analyse and interpret the targeting of pre-monotheistic heritage sites and artefacts by the Islamic State. It draws upon anthropological studies of initiation rituals in violent male cults alongside literature on heritage destruction to conduct a systematic analysis of key Islamic State propaganda outlets. The analysis reveals that the heritage destruction wrought by the Islamic State functions as part of a broader process of ritualization that is instrumental in forming bonds between members and ensuring their allegiance. Such rituals serve multiple purposes: they physically and ideologically separate new recruits from existing social norms and laws; they breed a deference to leadership and create a unified identity towards the potentiality of violence; and they situate heritage destruction itself within a complex symbolic kaleidoscope of prescribed actions and specific attire, invoking connections to an imagined past and repeating the actions of their forbearers. The article concludes by noting that such analysis of the ritualization of heritage destruction is not only vital to understanding how groups such as the Islamic State successfully transform ordinary young men into a violent jihadist communitas, but also in further understanding, and responding to, such attacks on heritage sites.

New and Emerging Challenges to Heritage and Well-Being: A Critical Review

“…However, despite its importance for individual, group, community and national well-being, heritage is threatened globally by development and cultural intolerance [41] with the destruction of heritage increasingly used to disempower people. The destruction of cultural heritage sites, such as that systematically undertaken by Islamic State in Syria and Iraq is an extreme example, but it also raises questions about the sustainability of heritage sites and practices, as well as the motivations in terms of purposeful negative impact on individual and community well-being [42][43][44][45].…”

The Islamic State’s destruction of Yezidi heritage: Responses, resilience and reconstruction after genocide

“…Although the researchers were able to conduct some in-person interviews inside Iraq and in neighbouring states with high numbers of Syrian and Iraqi refugees and migrants (Jordan and Lebanon), as well as with those who had migrated further afield, several of the interviews were conducted ‘at a distance’ via phone/Skype. However, such qualitative interpretations at a distance remain a vital tool in any robust attempt to understand the magnitude and effect of the horrors unleashed by the IS against the people of Syria and Iraq (Navest et al., 2016; Shahab and Isakhan, 2018). As Robben has demonstrated, such analysis requires that the researchers employ an ‘ethnographic imagination’ which itself requires a ‘leap of analytic and interpretive faith … to explain phenomena that cannot be studied directly through ethnographic fieldwork’ (Robben, 2010: 3).…”

“…Not surprisingly, a whole body of recent scholarship has sought to analyse and interpret various aspects of the heritage destruction unleashed by the IS. These have included: the failure of state bodies and multinational agencies to effectively respond to, and mitigate against, such destruction (Al Quntar and Daniels, 2016;Brodie, 2015); efforts to interpret the complex religious and ideological doctrine that underpins the virulent iconoclasm of the IS (Harmans¸ah, 2015;Isakhan and Zarandona, 2018); the role of heritage destruction in indoctrinating new recruits and binding them to the IS cause (Campion, 2017;Shahab and Isakhan, 2018); the extent to which the targeting of specific heritage sites formed part of their broader genocidal pogroms against besieged minorities (Bevan, 2016(Bevan, [2006; Isakhan, 2018); the IS attacks on heritage sites as a proxy for their rejection of 'western' imperialism and the vast symbolic nation building campaigns of various dictatorial regimes (de Cesari, 2015); the IS use of social media to present their heritage destruction as dramatic spectacles to local, regional and global audiences (Cunliffe and Curini, 2018;Smith et al, 2016); and the extent to which heritage reconstruction across Syria and Iraq can be utilised as part of a broader post-conflict peacebuilding process (Isakhan and Meskell, 2019;Lostal and Cunliffe, 2016).…”

New Digs: Networks, Assemblages, and the Dissolution of Binary Categories in Anthropological Archaeology

“…; Klein et al. ; Shahab and Isakhan ). Spurring a debate about versions of the past and their corresponding publics, González‐Ruibal, González, and Criado‐Boado () challenge scholars to imagine a “new public archaeology” that critically responds to different interest groups, in particular by recognizing and countering the reactionary populist voices who mobilize understandings of the past in service of nationalism.…”