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Practice theorists favor interviews and participant observations in their study. Using insights from anthropological works on bureaucratic texts, in this article we develop methodological tools to complement these interpretive methods of data collection. We suggest a way to trace practices by systematically looking through both the content of documents and their form. We probe this approach with an analysis of 408 diplomatic cables sent by the US Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in 2005–2009 and subsequently released by Wikileaks. We draw on these documents to tell two related stories about diplomatic practices: the first about epistemic practices and how the cables privilege certain voices and types of knowledge over others, and the second about diplomatic culture, where the cables serve as evidence of the powerful socialization processes that diplomats are subject to. This contributes to International Relations (IR) with a new approach for systematically analyzing written documents to uncover international practices.

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International Relations (IR) scholars, particularly those working in the rationalist tradition, argue that costly signalling is one of the main tools that policymakers have to resolve interstate bargaining disputes and, ultimately, to minimize the occurrence of war. Recent rationalist work has greatly advanced our understanding of how costly signalling works in global politics, particularly by unpacking how militarized escalations can signal potential antagonists (e.g. Slantchev 2011). But the current literature is too hasty in dismissing the importance of non-militarized signalling during international crises, particularly for leaders worried about the risk of accidental wars. This paper presents mandatory evacuations (MEs) as a form of non-militarized escalation that states have been increasingly using since World War II to credibly signal their opponents. We illustrate our claims with a case study of China’s preparations for the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War, when it ordered a massive evacuation along its northern border as a costly signal towards the Soviets.