Tales of pleasures of violence and combat resilience among Iraqi Shi’i combatants fighting ISIS

Abstract

I explore the slipperiness of violence, its destructive and reproductive emergence, by way of textures. Through tales of an ethnography undertaken in combat zones of Shi’i combatants fighting ISIS, I address the textures of violence, that is, those capacities that can be accessed not via meanings but rather through the moments in which meanings are reimagined and nothing exists except the very act that refers to itself. These moments and acts highlight the borders between pleasure and fun to seek out not only the inner workings of violence but also how one speaks anthropologically of an action that conveys no meaning except itself. My pursuit of the mode of engagement with violence among combatants challenged me to think differently about pleasure and fun at the frontlines by encouraging me to traverse understandings of Islamic militancy and combat motivations within the limitations of ideology and religiosity.