Hospitality as Diplomacy in Post- Cosmopolitan Urban Spaces Dervish Lodges and Sofra-Diplomacy in Post-War Bosnia-Herzegovina

Abstract

If the first step in developing an ethnography of everyday diplomacy requires re-scaling analytical focus on the forms of mediated exchange beyond the realm of the nation-state, this needs to be followed by an exploration of the 'sites' where everyday diplomacy actually takes place. One such 'site', which epitomizes the quintessence of diplomatic practice, is dining and commensality. By re-scaling this axiom beyond state-level diplomacy, I explore how the notion of sofra [table/dining etiquette] is deployed by a Muslim Dervish brotherhood in a post-cosmopolitan town in post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina. I suggest that the notion of sofra embodies both a mode of being diplomatic as well as a site of everyday diplomacy. The sofra thus enables the brotherhood to stage 'events of hospitality' to forge and mediate relationships between various 'others', locally and transnationally. interested in the other-worldly matters and Islamic healing and dreaming, he was told by his fellow villagers that he might witness some miracles in the lodge. The boy was warmly welcomed and taken to the room, with comfortable sofas covered by ram skins and embroiled pillows, where the sheikh usually received guests. The boy was immediately seated by one of the dervish disciples at the nearest corner of the sofa facing the sheikh, which is reserved for honoured guests. He was offered hot and cold drinks and a snack made of biscuits and fruits. The refreshments were served on the sofra 1 that had been spread between him and the sheikh. This gesture of hospitality, bringing the boy and the sheikh to the sofra, made the boy more relaxed. With increasing confidence he asked: 'Is it true that you can make the Qu'ran levitate when you are reciting from the book?'. The sheikh smiled, sipped from his glass of tea, encouraged the boy to eat something from the sofra and replied: 'Making the Qu'ran levitate? That's nothing. It's more comfortable to make my heavy body levitate over the Qu'ran when I am reciting from the book, don't you think so? Unfortunately, I am not in the mood today so you will need to come another time'. Everyone in the room apart from the boy, who was still hoping to see something miraculous, laughed. Then the sheikh started asking the boy questions about the village and a number of villagers whom he seemed to know.The boy, evidently perplexed by both the response as well as the sheikh's detailed knowledge of his own village and individual villagers, a kind of miracle [keramet] as well, answered all questions and left the lodge. To my knowledge he has never come back.Here I am less concerned about the details of the boy, as his story is not entirely unique in the social life in the lodge -on the contrary. Over the years of my fieldwork in the lodge I have become accustomed to such guests, diverse categories of individuals, coming from the town, surrounding villages and further afield. The questions they seek the sheikh to answer concern miraculous healing, and making and writing amulets [zapis]. Although the sheikh did not perform 3...

Assessing Commensality in Research

“…Among the identified papers on commensality assessment, 51 papers were categorized as qualitative. These were put into subcategories, such as qualitative interviews ( Table 2 ) [ 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 ] and ethnological studies ( Table 3 ) [ 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 ], log book plus interview ( Table 4 ) [ 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 ] case studies ( Table 5 ) [ 52 , 53 ] and diverse methods ( Table 6 ) [ 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 , 68 , …”

Rituals and Group Solidarity: An Ethnographic Case Study

“…This potential increase in prestige, however, depends heavily on the reputation of the leader (šejh). Insofar as the šejh of a dervish order makes a purposeful effort to build bridges between different segments of society by conducting informal diplomacy (Henig, 2014), he becomes an effective broker (Boissevain, 1974) mediating access to resources that might be unavailable to others. As a result, his prestige in society is consolidated, which in turn is, to some extent, passed on to other dervishes.…”

“…These duties cover activities ranging from cleaning to preparing tea and coffee for other dervishes and guests, to preparing or providing refreshments (after the ceremony, the dervishes often still meet for a more or less formal get-together over dinner. This custom is called sofra and is part of the relations of informal diplomacy often associated with dervish communities; see Henig, 2014).…”

How to be a good guest: American ethnographers in Turkey in the long 1968

“…Other scholars indirectly criticize the concept of hospitality as a property of the host. For example, Naor Ben‐Yehoyada (2016) points to mutual negotiations between guests and hosts, Caroline Humphrey (2019) suggests cutting the direct link between the host and masterhood, and David Henig (2016) analyses social spaces that mediate encounters between hosts and guests. Inspired by such balanced understanding of hospitality, I would like to take the next step and discuss hospitality relations from the guests’ point of view.…”