Building relations

Assembling an Auto-Geography of the Diplomatic Home

Bibliographic Data

ID3977808
AuthorsTimo Sysiö (National University of Singapore, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume24
Issue9
Pages1636-1653
Publication date2023-10-21
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial & Cultural Geography (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1464-9365 • E-ISSN: 1470-1197
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14649365.2022.2083666
OpenAlexW4281746092
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited72

Geographic literature on diplomatic spatiality has largely focused on the official sites of diplomacy, while neglecting the importance of the diplomatic home in everyday working life. Considering this gap in the literature, the present article extends the recent interest in critical geographies of home and considers its potential in furthering our understanding of interstate diplomacy. The paper assembles the affective atmospheres of the diplomatic home through a bottom-up perspective that combines the author's personal experiences as a Finnish career diplomat inhabiting a middle-class Turkish apartment with the oral accounts of his houseguests. Attention is given to the creation of images of national culture and design through micro-scale country-branding efforts. The analysis shows that while home atmospheres can be manipulated for diplomatic ends, there are also disjunctures between idealised designs and the embodied experiences of diplomatic houseguests. The article ends by discussing the implications of the present study for the literature on critical geographies of diplomacy

Aesthetics · Diplomacy · Embodied cognition · Epistemology · Mobilities · Perspective (graphical · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Turkish · Visual arts · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · Diverse Aspects of Tourism Research · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Law

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