ABSTRACT
Chapter 6 concludes on the major findings of the books undertaking to conceptualize and research UN intervention in Iraq in the period from 2000 to 2010 from the perspective of intervention discourses and practices. Using empirical examples from analysis in previous chapters and tying these back to the conceptual framework, the argument reiterates that intervention and non-intervention constitute contingent processes that evolved in conjunction with the objects of intervention at their core. In the last section, the discussion reflects on two issues that relate to the wider question of knowledge practices and reflexivity in international interventions. The first concerns the processual and evolutionary character of interventionary instruments, such as Special Political Missions, and the risk of prioritizing self-referential intervention practices. The second draws on the contributions of Danielsson and Haraway and develops perspectives on the “partiality” and “situatedness” of knowledge as complementary concepts to those of “identity” and “representations”. The argument emphasizes the need for continued and more sustained critical analysis of a political economy of knowledge production in international intervention practices.
