Reversing displacement: Navigating the spontaneity of spatial networks of craft, tradition and memory in post-war Old Mosul

Abstract

The destruction of Mosul's Old Town has led to sudden and unmanaged displacements of different ethnic, cultural and professional communities who departed northern Iraq's medieval trade and cultural centre. While the reconstruction of historic monuments was prioritised for the post-ISIS recovery process, the disappearance of trade, culture, and communities had a more lasting impact on the erasure of memory, traditional practices and social interactions in the Historic Centre. Moving away from the conventions of planned and structured return in post-conflict cities, this paper investigates the growing and unstructured spontaneous processes of displacement, relocation, and rebuilding as an unmanaged process where the central government and the local authority had limited impact on the daily and active return of displaced communities and craftsmen. We argue that the active and interconnected networks of trade, craft communities and livelihoods in the Old City can be activated by individualistic efforts to trigger a spontaneous, yet effective and decentralised approach to post-conflict return in Iraq. This paper navigates local narratives, spaces of memory and spatial patterns of displacement and return, using the observations, spatial mapping, first-hand local narratives and flows of displacement.