Afterword: On Diplomatic Gifts and their Meanings

This afterword addresses some of the key insights emerging from the articles in this issue as ways of reshaping our understanding of diplomatic gifts in a global context. These include the multiplicity of registers of diplomatic communication, the versatility of gifts as floating signifiers whose me...

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Main Author: Guido van Meersbergen
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Centre de Recherche et d'Etudes en Civilisation Britannique 2024-06-01
Series:Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/rfcb/12555
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author Guido van Meersbergen
author_facet Guido van Meersbergen
author_sort Guido van Meersbergen
collection DOAJ
description This afterword addresses some of the key insights emerging from the articles in this issue as ways of reshaping our understanding of diplomatic gifts in a global context. These include the multiplicity of registers of diplomatic communication, the versatility of gifts as floating signifiers whose meanings were shaped by a diverse array of actors, and how the wider contexts and afterlives of gifts affect and illuminate questions of value and agency. Together, they stress the importance of examining political and material exchanges between Britain and the Islamicate world from the late sixteenth to the early twentieth century within a comparative and connected framework. The afterword concludes with a call to look for transformations and continuities that do not align with the conventional narrative of the modern international system as shaped exclusively in and by the West, and above all to better account for the roles that non-Western communities and concepts played in the development of the global diplomatic system.
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spelling doaj-art-79f298469d5d4629b8f3f151b5b69ee82025-08-20T02:20:07ZengCentre de Recherche et d'Etudes en Civilisation BritanniqueRevue Française de Civilisation Britannique0248-90152429-43732024-06-0129310.4000/11vhjAfterword: On Diplomatic Gifts and their MeaningsGuido van MeersbergenThis afterword addresses some of the key insights emerging from the articles in this issue as ways of reshaping our understanding of diplomatic gifts in a global context. These include the multiplicity of registers of diplomatic communication, the versatility of gifts as floating signifiers whose meanings were shaped by a diverse array of actors, and how the wider contexts and afterlives of gifts affect and illuminate questions of value and agency. Together, they stress the importance of examining political and material exchanges between Britain and the Islamicate world from the late sixteenth to the early twentieth century within a comparative and connected framework. The afterword concludes with a call to look for transformations and continuities that do not align with the conventional narrative of the modern international system as shaped exclusively in and by the West, and above all to better account for the roles that non-Western communities and concepts played in the development of the global diplomatic system.https://journals.openedition.org/rfcb/12555Britaindiplomatic giftsmaterialityglobal diplomacyIslamicate world
spellingShingle Guido van Meersbergen
Afterword: On Diplomatic Gifts and their Meanings
Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique
Britain
diplomatic gifts
materiality
global diplomacy
Islamicate world
title Afterword: On Diplomatic Gifts and their Meanings
title_full Afterword: On Diplomatic Gifts and their Meanings
title_fullStr Afterword: On Diplomatic Gifts and their Meanings
title_full_unstemmed Afterword: On Diplomatic Gifts and their Meanings
title_short Afterword: On Diplomatic Gifts and their Meanings
title_sort afterword on diplomatic gifts and their meanings
topic Britain
diplomatic gifts
materiality
global diplomacy
Islamicate world
url https://journals.openedition.org/rfcb/12555
work_keys_str_mv AT guidovanmeersbergen afterwordondiplomaticgiftsandtheirmeanings