Everyday Diplomacy

Abstract

This article considers the relevance of an ethnographic approach towards the study of diplomacy. By drawing upon recent interdisciplinary developments we critically reassess the ongoing assumption that in the modern world diplomacy is separated from other domains of human life, and that the only actors authorized and able to conduct diplomacy are the nation-state's representatives. Having outlined recent theoretical interventions concerning the turn towards the study of everyday, unofficial and grass-roots forms of diplomacy, the article suggests some of the ways in which ethnography can be deployed in order to understand how individuals and communities affected by geopolitical processes develop and pursue diplomatic modes of agency and ask how they relate to, evaluate and arbitrate between the geopolitical realms that affect their lives. In so doing, we propose an analytical heuristic -'everyday diplomacy' -to attend to the ways individuals and communities engage with and influence decisions about world affairs.

Centred discourse, decentred practice: the relational production of Russian and Chinese ‘rising’ power in Central Asia

“…Greater research in the form of ethnographies of transnational finance and multinational enterprises are required to properly evidence the nature and scale of rising power in decentred terms. Anthropological research has taken this de-centred approach further by considering Central Asian-Chinese trade as a mode of 'everyday diplomacy' 88 which contrasts with the 'romantic visions of interconnectivity fashioned by elites which gather in international hotels'.…”

Azeri networks through thick and thin: West Asian politics from a diasporic eye

“…These parallel trends have recently converged on a theme traditionally known as informal diplomacy or track-two diplomacy, that is, intermediation between states through the interaction of non-state actors. Having gained more traction within the field of international relations in the past decade, the theme of informal diplomacy has also drawn historians and anthropologists who have highlighted the lived nature of this phenomenon through alternative conceptualizations such as cultural diplomacy (Kirasirova, 2011) and everyday diplomacy (Marsden, Ibañez-Tirado, & Henig, 2016). It is the contention of this article that this convergence carries immense potential for generating historical and comparative frames for analyzing contemporary state-network interactions across Eurasia.…”

New trade formations: precarity, pragmatic cosmopolitanism and long‐distance trade in the Caucasus

“…Moreover, 'everyday diplomacy' as a conscious strategy has featured prominently in global networks of transnational traders, such as, for instance, Afghanis (cf. Marsden et al 2016). However, whereas the concept of diplomacy is central to Afghani identity and self-understanding as traders (Marsden 2016: 158), for the post-Soviet traders in the Caucasus who are engaged in long-distance or cross-cultural trade, diplomacy is mainly an unspoken channel of pragmatic cosmopolitanism.…”