Intervention in Private Life

Abstract

Abstract This chapter shifts focus to Islamic State’s (IS) increasing intervention in civilians’ private lives. Through its directives on family relations, marriage rites, and even raising children, IS sought to instil its values into the hearts and households of its governed populations. The dissolution of boundaries between the private home space and the public sphere was neither universally experienced nor welcomed, prompting the need for a more complex understanding of ‘private’ acts and their significance for those differentially located in relation to axes of power. For some women, physical seclusion within the private home space offered a ‘safe haven’ from public scrutiny, discrimination, and violence. For others, particularly Yazidi captives, the domestic sphere constituted an unregulated space of victimization, wherein private violations—some perpetrated by pro-IS women—served an ideo-political purpose. In this context, women’s resilience and acts of private resistance take on public, political significance.