Suchergebnisse

Controversy has surrounded the legal, territorial, and political status of Tibet for decades. How does the Tibetan Government-in-Exile (TGiE)ù in spite of a complete lack of legal recognitionù continue to enact state-like functions from the hill town of Dharomsala, India? Rehearsing the State: The Political Practices of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile presents a comprehensive investigation of the institutions, performances, and actors through which the exiled Tibetan communityùthis active state-in-waiting ù is experimenting, modifying, and rehearsing state practices. Based on ethnographic research on the TGiE and in Tibetan communities based in India, chapters bring critical theories of the state into dialogue with geographies of temporality to develop the idea of rehearsal through the exploration of spaces, roles, scripts, and audiences in the performance of exile statecraft. A wide range of issues are explored, including how state-like functions are enacted without legal jurisdiction over territory, ways in which futures are made present alongside prolonged waiting, and what happens to these anticipatory logics when the time frame is extended indefinitely. Illuminating and thought-provoking, Rehearsing the State offers timely insights into exile Tibetan politics while making a significant contribution to wider issues of critical state theory and the politics of displacement. --Book Jacket

This paper seeks to add empirical depth and conceptual nuance to how we understand the dynamics of geopolitical interactions. It does so by turning attention to the role of space in how modes of politics are articulated. The micro-spaces of international institutions are brought to the fore through an examination of how geopolitical actors of different prescribed statuses – state diplomats and representatives of minority communities – interact in the spaces of the UN Office at Geneva. Focusing on the UN Forum on Minority Issues the paper adopts an inductive approach to draw out dynamics of scripting, disruption, (in)visibility and affective atmospheres in this space. Three empirical snapshots of the eighth and ninth Forums are presented. The first focuses on spatial scripting within Room XX and examines experiences of sublime aesthetics and the cadences of the Forum's proceedings. Attention then turns to the actions of particular states which interrupted minority speakers and engaged in spatial practices of intimidation. Third, the agency of minority representatives in asserting their presence through reclaiming space and small acts of subversion is examined. The paper concludes with a discussion of how to approach the often contradictory modes of politics articulated at the UN and the potential for further geographical investigation of this international institution.

Space and place matter to diplomacy, yet surprisingly little analytical attention has been paid to geographical approaches and questions. This intervention sketches out the potentially productive lens that a geographical approach to diplomacy can offer in terms of diversifying conceptual framings, widening the empirical lens so that a broader range of practices, actors and objects come into view when we consider "diplomacy," and embracing an open and integrative approach to interdisciplinary thinking about diplomacy.

This paper interrogates the notion of diplomatic decorum in order to shine new light on the power relations that underpin performance, rhetoric, and emotional labor in international politics. In framing decorum in terms of Aristotelian rhetoric and dramaturgical principles, the paper focuses on representatives of minority communities, indigenous peoples, and stateless nations for whom adopting social behavior appropriate for the spaces of international diplomacy takes on a heightened importance. Drawing on postcolonial critiques of diplomacy, attention turns to two distinct political repertoires and configurations of style and subject that these liminal geopolitical actors engage with. First the paper examines the extent to which "unofficial" diplomats perform behavior fitting to a particular diplomatic space and how they seek to enact a diplomatic style that will be deemed appropriate to their subject position as both outsiders and aspirant diplomats. Second, the paper examines what it means to break the unwritten rules of diplomatic decorum, both in terms of incidences where individuals push the boundaries deliberately in order to perform otherness, and in examples where diplomatic performances go awry. The paper concludes by considering the ways in which decorum is a productive lens through which to view and reassess the colonial norms and power relations underpinning diplomacy.