Conceptualizing ‘diaspora diplomacy’: Territory and populations betwixt the domestic and foreign

Elaine L.E. Ho, National University of Singapore

Fiona McConnell, University of Oxford, UK

Abstract
This article bridges diaspora studies and diplomacy studies by proposing the concept of ‘diaspora
diplomacy’, which considers the components of diplomacy and the changing relationships that
diasporas have with states and other diplomatic actors. First, we ask who are the key actors engaged
in diaspora diplomacy? Second, how is diplomatic work enacted by and through diasporas? Third,
what are the geographies of diaspora diplomacy? Diaspora diplomacy directs researchers to
reconsider the distinction between domestic and foreign policy, and the territorial dimensions of
both diaspora and diplomacy. We engage with assemblage theory, highlighting the polylateral and
multi-directional aspects of diaspora diplomacy.

Keywords: assemblages, diaspora, diplomacy, polylateralism, state, territory

I Introduction
In a geopolitical climate that seems to be perpetually battered by international crises, hope
continues to be placed on the role of diplomacy in mediating competing interests. In a world where
migration has reached levels unprecedented since the Second World War, diasporas are increasingly
seen as influential actors on both domestic and international fronts. From Kurdish activists to Indian
migrant entrepreneurs and Israeli emigrant lobbyists, diasporas are being sought out and engaged as
potential diplomatic actors to fulfil diplomacy’s core functions of communication, representation
and negotiation. This article sits at the juncture of what has been hitherto considered two distinct
sets of literature: diaspora studies and diplomacy studies (especially ‘new diplomacy’). The article
considers how their convergence points to a field of study we term ‘diaspora diplomacy’.

Focusing on the connections between diaspora and diplomacy allows us to critically examine the
components of diplomacy, the changing relationships that diasporas have with states and an array of
diplomatic actors, and explore the spatial articulations of diaspora diplomacy. Geographers have put
considerable effort into interrogating the mechanisms through which sovereignty is enacted and
territory imagined, constructed and contested (Agnew, 1994; Elden, 2006; McConnell, 2009; Painter,
2010; Steinberg, 2009). Our conceptualization of diaspora diplomacy further advances debates
central to political geography on the nature of state power and sovereignty (Agnew, 2005; Painter,
2006; Mountz, 2013; McConnell, 2016), and the political articulations of territory and territoriality
(e.g. Agnew, 1994; Antonsich, 2009; Allen, 2011; Elden, 2013). We suggest that diaspora diplomacy
contributes to debates around the shifting role of the state within international politics by
highlighting the complex ways that diasporas are engaged by and themselves engage with state,
non-state and international actors. Our article brings the spatial dimensions of diplomacy to the
fore, a field of study which has thus far received little attention from geographers despite the
considerable potential for spatial analyses to contribute to debates around the changing nature of
diplomacy (for exceptions see McConnell et al., 2012; Kuus, 2014).

Focusing on how diasporas conduct diplomacy underlines how practices of territorialisation and
deterritorialization manifest simultaneously, and how such diplomacy can invoke overlapping scalar
territorial imaginations for securing greater legitimacy. We conceptualize these ideas through
assemblage theory, highlighting the polylateral and multi-directional aspects of diaspora diplomacy.
In forging connections between geography, diaspora and diplomacy, our article addresses three key
questions. First, we ask who are the key actors engaging in diaspora diplomacy? We map out the
different social actors that participate in diaspora diplomacy. We consider not only the state actors
that engage with diasporas but also non-state and international actors who are targets or
beneficiaries of diaspora diplomacy. In so doing, our article positions diasporas as diplomatic actors
in their own right.

Second, we ask how is diplomatic work enacted by and through diasporas? Here we explore the
nature of diplomatic work done by diasporas and the formal and informal aspects of what counts as
diplomacy. Third, through the above analyses we ask what are the geographies of diaspora
diplomacy? Our conceptualization of diaspora diplomacy contributes to scholarship in political
geography and critical geopolitics by troubling spatial assumptions concerning the distinction
between domestic and foreign policy agendas, and the territorial dimensions of diplomacy. Our
focus on diaspora diplomacy also draws out how diasporas deploy diplomatic tactics to engage with
and spatially connect multiple stakeholders and audiences as constituents of assemblages.

Addressing these questions and foregrounding the geographical dimensions of how diasporas
engage with diplomatic practices also allow us to bridge new developments in both diplomacy
studies and diaspora studies. Within the former, recent research has advocated a turn away from
diplomacy solely as statecraft and towards the diversity of social actors that engage in diplomatic
practices (e.g. Cornago, 2013; McConnell et al., 2012). However, key texts on diplomacy rarely
mention diasporas at all (e.g. Bjola and Kornprobts, 2013). If they do, it is in passing, as one of a
range of ‘new’ diplomatic actors (e.g. Riordan, 2003) or as a vehicle for public diplomacy (Melissen,
2005, 2013; Yun, 2012; Copeland, 2009). Our conceptualization of diaspora diplomacy follows critical
scholarship that approaches diplomacy as ‘humanist aspirations’ that have the potential to bring
about changes in ‘how we live together and in relation to others’ (Constantinou, 2013: 156;
Constantinou and Der Derian, 2010). We examine what engaging diasporas in diplomacy means for
the evolution of diplomatic practice, consider the way that diplomatic practice casts new light on
how diasporas achieve their aspirations, and discuss how the spatial reconfigurations implicit in
these developments speak to broader debates around the relationship between political
representation and territory.

Research within diaspora studies has critically analysed the recent state-driven initiatives that
engage diasporas for political and development purposes, known as diaspora strategies (Gamlen,
2008; Ho et al., 2015; Dickinson, 2014). Diasporas can be called on to conduct high-level diplomatic
negotiations for their countries of origin, as well as more ordinary ways of flying the flag of their
home countries through daily practices and interactions with host communities. Diasporas may also
seek to influence domestic and foreign policy agendas in their countries of origin (see Newland,
2010), or lobby other state actors and international organizations for the right to create a new
nation-state (e.g. on Kurds, see Berkowitz and Mugge, 2014; on Palestinians, see Mavroudi, 2008; on
Tibetans, see McConnell, 2016). In such ways, diasporas play an increasingly important role in
diplomatic negotiations by ‘partaking in governing’ (Sending et al., 2011). Diasporas can thus be
brought into diplomacy as addressee or participant (Mwagiru, 2012) and, in the process, shape the
conduct of diplomacy too.

We argue that the link between diaspora and diplomacy remains to be fully and systematically
explored in diaspora studies. Researchers have considered the political importance of diasporas
from angles such as diaspora lobbying or diaspora advocacy (e.g. Gandhi, 2002; Newland, 2010). Our
focus on diaspora diplomacy builds on but is also distinct from existing studies of diaspora politics
and political transnationalism. The latter mainly considers state-diaspora relations and how
diasporas participate in the political affairs of sending countries, for example through external
voting, political remittances, and the political outcomes of ‘circulating ideas, practices [and] know-
how’ (Boccagni et al., 2016: 447; see also Laguerre, 1999; Smith, 2003; McGregor, 2009; Collyer,
2014; Brand, 2014). In contrast, our conceptualization of diaspora diplomacy focuses on the role of
diasporas in shaping diplomacy’s core functions of representation, communication and mediation. It
is concerned with the multiple stakeholders and audiences that diasporas reach out to for
communicating the cause they represent, the mechanisms through which such communication is
done, the tensions ensuing when different stakeholders are brought into the picture, and how such
tensions are mediated.

The following section reviews the interdisciplinary literature on diplomacy and diasporas that speaks
to the field of study we term ‘diaspora diplomacy’. This includes work on public diplomacy as a lever
of soft power and the diversification of diplomatic actors, and scholarship on the intersection of
diasporas with national agendas around development and foreign policy. We focus on the attention,
or lack thereof, that existing literature has paid to the role of the state and territory vis-a`-vis recent
transformations in the practice of diplomacy and the political articulations of diasporas. The
remainder of the article is structured around two modalities of diaspora diplomacy: diplomacy
through diaspora and diplomacy by diaspora. The former establishes how diasporas function as
diplomatic actors and the way they bring multiple diplomacy stakeholders and audiences into an
assemblage of relations and interactions. This discussion signals how diaspora diplomacy troubles
the territorial assumptions associated with diplomatic practices and steers attention to the
polylateral aspects of diplomacy (Wiseman, 2004). The latter section focuses on the diplomatic
actions that diasporas take to advance alternative political visions. It traces three modalities of
diaspora diplomacy: advocacy, mediation and representation. The discussion underlines the scalar
aspects of diaspora diplomacy and shows how diaspora diplomacy engenders new articulations of
territory and territoriality. We conclude by reiterating the analytical potential of diaspora diplomacy
and its significance for advancing geographical debates on state power, sovereignty and territory.
Focusing primarily on the contemporary period, our analysis draws on selected case studies to
illustrate our arguments.

II Situating diaspora diplomacy as a field of study

The practice of diplomacy is understood as the management of relations between groups, and how
this is articulated through practices of communication and representation. With the acceleration of
digital communications, the tools of diplomacy have expanded to include social media, such that
instantaneous communication with a wide range of audiences at home and abroad has become
commonplace (Bjola and Holmes, 2015). Alongside this, the increasing interconnectedness of
humanitarian, environmental, trade and military issues, and the cross-cutting scales of foreign policy
interaction, have multiplied the range of actors engaged in diplomatic practices (Kerr and Wiseman,
2013). These trends are reflected in two increasingly prominent bodies of academic work that mainly
emerged from international relations (IR) but have important interdisciplinary dimensions. The first
is a focus on public diplomacy as a lever of soft power and the second is scholarship coalescing
around ‘new diplomacy’ (Riordan, 2003), which analyses the pluralization of diplomatic actors. In
discussing key themes emerging from this scholarship, we note points of intersection with the role of
diasporas but also the lack of sustained academic attention to how their aspirations and actions are
reconfiguring the role of states and, of particular interest to geographers, the territorial dimension
of diplomacy.

The notion of public diplomacy has gained considerable popular and scholarly attention in recent
years. Essentially, public diplomacy is the communication of policy perspectives and the fostering of
relationships between political entities (including but not restricted to states) and publics based in
foreign countries in order to inform and influence these audiences. As a diplomatic practice, public
diplomacy long precedes its scholarly framing, but it came to prominence in the post-9/11 era when
international perceptions of the United States were linked to the welfare of the country’s national
security (Ross, 2002). Underpinning much public diplomacy literature and practice in the 2000s has
been Nye’s conceptualization of soft power, defined as ‘the ability to get what you want through
attraction rather than coercion or payments [which] . . . arises from the attractiveness of a country’s
culture, political ideals, and policies’ (2004: x). Public diplomacy is understood as one of the key
instruments in this mode of power (Gilboa, 2008; Melissen, 2005) and has been embraced as an
indispensable tool of statecraft. It goes beyond international reputation management to also include
relationship building ‘through dialogue and networking activities by actors above and below the
state’ (Huijgh, 2016: 444). The breadth of what comes under the remit of public diplomacy has,
however, been a source of scholarly anxiety, with concerns that the term has lost its analytical
purchase (Sharp and Wiseman, 2012; Hiujgh, 2013: 63; Gilboa, 2008). We propose that paying
attention to the dynamics of diaspora diplomacy can bring conceptual clarity to the notion of public
diplomacy.

As Melissen (2013: 436) has noted, public diplomacy is ‘in a sense a metaphor for the
democratization of diplomacy, with multiple actors playing a role in what was once an area
restricted to a few’. This shift from ‘club’ to ‘network’ diplomacy (Heine, 2006) is reflected in
academic work where there has been a shift from the traditional assumption that diplomacy is the
special preserve of the state (Nicolson, 1939; Satow, 1922; Watson, 1984), to a broader
understanding of diplomacy (see Kerr and Wiseman, 2013; Sharp, 2009). This resonates with the
critique of state-centrism that underpins work in critical geopolitics, despite a surprising lack of
engagement by geographers with the field of diplomacy (for exceptions see Kuus, 2016; Jones and
Clark, 2015; McConnell et al., 2012; Dittmer, 2015). Within critical diplomacy studies, a growing body
of work loosely labelled ‘new diplomacy’ has attended specifically to the multiplication of non-state
actors on the diplomatic stage (Cooper et al., 2002; Riordan, 2003). This includes research on the
role of NGOs (Betsill and Corell, 2008), transnational corporations (Strange, 1992) and indigenous
communities (Beier, 2010; Epp, 2001) in formal diplomatic negotiations. Meanwhile, new regional
formations have given rise to supranational and subnational diplomatic services, from the European
External Action Service (Kuus, 2014; Balfour et al., 2015) to the foreign policy capacity of subnational
governments through ‘paradiplomacy’ (Aldecoa and Keating, 1999; Duchacek et al., 1988; Cornago,
2010) and city diplomacy (Acuto, 2013).

Scholars of diplomacy have started to ask how the multiplication of actors in world politics might
change the nature and quality of diplomacy (Cooper and Hocking, 2000 McConnell et al., 2012;
Constantinou et al., 2017). This includes investigating which diplomatic practices these actors engage
with, how these practices condition actors’ strategies, and the broader question of who is a
legitimate actor in international relations (see Beier, 2010: 10; Cornago, 2013; Sending et al., 2011:
10). In seeking to avoid a dualistic framework of ‘“old diplomacy”, as exemplified by state actors [ . . .
] being threatened and reconfigured by “new diplomacy”, which is heralded by non-state actors’
(McConnell, 2017: 140), scholars have proposed the idea of ‘a new “global heteropolarity”, in which
a wide range of new actors are producing profound global effects through interconnectivity’
(Constantinou and Der Derian, 2010: 18), the ‘diplomatization’ of social life (Neumann, 2012) and
polylateralism (Wiseman, 2004, 2010). The sections that follow demonstrate that the idea of a
polylateral world of multiple state, non-state and international actors that develop diplomatic
relations without ‘mutual recognition as sovereign, equivalent entities’ being necessary (Wiseman,
2010: 27) is one that resonates closely with the articulation of diaspora diplomacy. We also use
diaspora diplomacy to highlight the thus far overlooked geographical dimensions of how
unconventional diplomatic actors shift the nature of diplomacy. We tease out the flattening of
hierarchies of diplomatic relations and how, through diaspora engagement, the relationship
between diplomacy and territory is rearticulated.

Just as diplomacy studies have increasingly questioned what is meant by ‘diplomacy’, so the core
concept of diaspora has been subject to critical debate within the field of diaspora studies. We adopt
Brubaker’s (2005: 13) understanding of diaspora ‘as a category of practice, project, claim and stance,
rather than as a bounded group’. Critical diaspora studies research peaked during the late 1990s as
researchers interrogated the characteristics of diasporas as social formations, and questioned the
boundaries of inclusion and exclusion from diaspora membership. Such research evolved to examine
how diasporas engage homeland states through political mobilization or cultural ambassadorship
(e.g. Smith, 2003; Tomiczek, 2011; Dickinson, 2014). The Irish, Armenian and Jewish diasporas are
classic examples of how diasporas have represented and lobbied for the interests of their respective
homelands to the US government, acting as diplomatic actors in bilateral relations. Today new
research directions are emerging in diaspora research as a result of growing academic interest in
policies known as diaspora strategies, understood as the initiatives that migrant-sending states
implement to mobilize their diasporas for national agendas (e.g. Larner, 2007; Ragazzi, 2009; Ho,
2011; Mullings, 2012; Delano and Gamlen, 2014; Cohen, 2017). Research on diaspora strategies has
advanced earlier work in transnationalism studies that heralded the ‘end of the state’, or at least its
diminished role. This research agenda includes ideas of the ‘emigration state’ (Gamlen, 2008) and
‘emigrant infrastructure’ (Raj, 2015), the extraterritorial extension of state power (Ho, 2011; Collyer
and King, 2014), and diaspora governmentalities (Larner, 2007; Mullings, 2012; Dickinson, 2014).
Nonetheless, we note that the current scholarship on diasporas focuses mainly on (sending) state-
diaspora relations whereas our conceptualization of diaspora diplomacy brings into view the
multiple stakeholders and audiences that diasporas engage for diplomatic purposes.

To that end we engage with a small but growing body of work that is turning attention to how
migrant-receiving countries and supranational organizations, such as the World Bank and the
European Union, leverage the symbolic ties that foreign-born populations retain to their countries of
origin (e.g. Sinatti and Horst, 2014; Boyle and Ho, 2017). These powerful actors also sponsor the
diaspora strategies of low income countries to support the transfer of skills, knowledge and capital
that are conducive to development in those countries (Sinatti and Horst, 2014). Such collaborations
entail not only economic but also political and foreign policy intentions. For example, the US-based
non-profit organization International Diaspora Engagement Alliance (IdEA) operates under the
auspices of the Secretary of State’s Office of Global Partnerships, thus tying funding for diaspora-
centred development abroad to US foreign policy (Boyle and Ho, 2017). One of its initiatives is a
web-chat series that enables diaspora groups, such as those from Armenia, Greece and Ukraine, to
pose questions to former US diplomats on the topic of US government engagement with diaspora
communities (IdEA, 20 September 2016). The multi-directionality of diplomatic tactics evinced in
these examples signals overlapping soft power agendas in which multiple state actors engage
another country’s diasporas as diplomatic actors, thus complicating the territorial premises of state
power and diplomacy.

The discussion above points to the explicit and implicit political functions of diasporas. The multiple
ways in which diasporas can be called upon by both migrant-sending and migrant-receiving
countries, as well as at an international level, lead to questions such as who are the targeted
subjects of diaspora engagement and why? In what ways do state-directed diaspora strategies
engender the relation between nation and state, and how might this be challenged? With these
questions in mind, we use the idea of diaspora diplomacy to contribute to three sets of debates in
diaspora studies: the relationship between diasporas and territory, the role of the state vis-a-vis
diasporas, and the interactions between diasporas and other social actors. We suggest that diaspora
diplomacy extends arguments on the extraterritorial reach of the state to analyses of the multi-actor
assemblages that both states and diasporas enter into through diplomacy.

First, early diaspora studies scholarship (e.g. Tölölyan, 1991; Clifford, 1994; Ma Mung, 2004) has
argued that diasporas complicate territorial assumptions of nation and statehood as a dispersed
population that resides outside of national homelands but which claims strong attachments to the
place they left. With more migrants embarking on re-migration journeys from country to country
today, the sojourning patterns of diaspora members further confound the territorial underpinnings
of not only nation and state but also diaspora (e.g. Ho and Ley, 2014). Whose diaspora do these
individuals belong to? Through what mechanisms are they mobilized for diplomatic purposes and
towards what ends? Our conceptualization of diaspora diplomacy directs attention to the new
complexities that characterize definitions of diasporas, homeland and the territorial attachments on
which these are premised.

Second, studies of diaspora engagement have hitherto focused on state-led initiatives, diaspora and
state interactions, or international organizations that work with recognized interstate actors. Schiller
(2005) argued that diaspora studies have been typically concerned with nation-centric identities; the
population scrutinized is understood to be a nation that has dispersed from its homeland or desires
its own homeland. We propose that it is also useful to take apart the conflation of nation and state
in analyses of the conjoined relationship between diaspora and diplomacy. This opens space to
consider instances where the diaspora takes the lead to lobby for its own interests even if these are
in opposition to sovereign states, or the means by which stateless polities enlist their diasporas to
advance their cause. Disentangling diaspora from the state also allows us to examine the nature of
diplomacy that diasporas carry out without the diplomatic recognition afforded under the inter-state
system, and it broadens the focus from questions of how diasporas participate in politics to the
multiple stakeholders and audiences that diasporas engage through diplomacy’s strategies of
representation, communication and mediation.

Second, just as new diplomacy studies have started to recognize the multiple stakeholders and
polylateral operations of diplomacy, the rise of diaspora strategies within critical diaspora studies
has led to research that adopts governmentality as a theoretical perspective for understanding how
diasporas are governed and govern from afar, and the interactions between migrant-sending and
migrant-receiving states as well as a range of social actors (e.g. Larner, 2007; Ragazzi, 2009; Sinatti
and Horst, 2014; Boyle and Ho, 2017). For instance, Mullings (2012) deploys governmentality to
assess how diaspora strategies function as assemblages which enable states to govern from afar. She
refers to such social formations as diaspora assemblages (also see Dickinson, 2017, on the material
and affective aspects of state-diaspora relations). In assemblage theory, the state would be one of
several component parts of a whole and the capacities of those component parts are the result of
interaction with ‘an infinite set of other components’ (see Dittmer, 2014: 387). In the following
section, we build on this intersection between diaspora, governmentality and assemblages to
develop our discussion of diaspora diplomacy.

In sum, apart from a handful of case studies, which we discuss below, there is limited literature that
explicitly focuses on the connection between diasporas and diplomacy. Where the term ‘diaspora
diplomacy’ has specifically been used it appears as a descriptor for a form of public diplomacy
(Tomiczek, 2011), a mode of soft power (Gonzalez, 2012) and a strategy used by states to promote
their external interests (Rana, 2009).1 In each case ‘diaspora diplomacy’ is applied to a single case
study and few efforts are made to analyse the characteristics of diaspora’s engagement with
diplomacy or its implications for state power, territory and territoriality. What is missing, and what
this article develops, is a conceptual understanding of the dynamics of diaspora diplomacy. The next
section establishes how diasporas function as diplomatic actors that can be mobilized by states and
how their diplomatic tactics create assemblages comprising intergovernmental or supranational
organizations, national governments, provincial or local governments, diaspora associations and the
market, inter alia.

III Conducting diplomacy through diaspora: In the service of states

In the literature on both diaspora and diplomacy, the focus has been on how sending states enrol
their diasporas to lobby for the national interest, facilitate bilateral mediation, or as a resource for
information gathering by intelligence agencies (e.g. Cochrane et al., 2009, Rana, 2009; Liu, 2011).
Diasporas are also seen as key to cultural and public diplomacy, such as by fostering cross-
community relations and understanding that goes beyond the formal initiatives of the state (e.g. the
British Council, Alliance Francaise, Goethe Institute). This section on how diplomacy is conducted
through diaspora first discusses how migrant-sending states enrol diasporas to promote their image
abroad, albeit recognizing the contested aspects of such partnerships. Thereafter, we turn to how
migrant-receiving states in the Global North enlist the diasporas of other countries to extend their
influence in those migrant-sending countries. We use these examples to argue that being of both
domestic and foreign worlds, diasporas can be analysed as populations embodying liminal political
subjectivities. We also underline the multiple stakeholders engaged in diaspora diplomacy and the
multi-directional aspects of diaspora diplomacy that challenge conventional approaches tying
diplomacy purely to state power and territory. This leads us to suggest that diaspora diplomacy can
be analysed using assemblage theory. Diaspora diplomacy thus directs attention to a mode of
diplomacy that challenges the distinction of insider and outsider, and entails processes of both
territorialisation and deterritorialization.

Formalized diaspora strategies represent systematic approaches through which states engage
diasporas in order to enact soft power. Soft power is enacted through cooperation rather than
coercion (Nye, 2004), such as by influencing the opinions and therefore the foreign policy decisions
of bilateral partners or international organizations. Leading global actors that have capitalized upon
their diasporas as diplomatic tools to enhance their soft power include Armenia, Israel and Ireland
(Arthur, 1991; Sandler, 2004; Zarifian, 2014). Recent scholarly attention has also focused on China
and India because of the ambitious initiatives they have launched to institutionalize relationships
with their diasporas so as to reap the potential benefits that diasporas can bring to bilateral relations
(especially economic) in their role as bridge-builders (Rana, 2009: 367). These initiatives include
establishing ministries and government agencies for diaspora engagement, thus designating a
portion of the state apparatus to emigration affairs. In both China and India, engagement for
diaspora affairs filters down to sub-national levels involving provincial and local governments (e.g.
Varadarajan, 2010; Leung, 2015; Ho, 2016). Their diasporafocused ministries and agencies host
diaspora conferences within their respective countries and send missions abroad to engage with
their diasporas. Diasporas are perceived as a ready catchment for embassies and diaspora-focused
ministries/agencies to solicit advice and for mobilization.

Both China and India have longstanding diasporas, making outreach to diasporic descendants a
component of diaspora diplomacy. For example, China’s claims over the Chinese diaspora
encompass those considered Chinese diasporic descendants (i.e. their ancestors left China during
the 19th or early 20th century) and those known as the xinyimin (new Chinese migrants who left
China after 1978) (see Ho, 2016). India’s relationship to its historical diaspora is fractious but has
been partially recuperated through diaspora strategizing (see Dickinson, 2014). Both China and
India’s diaspora strategies include engaging with organizations abroad that bring together members
of the diaspora. Known as diaspora associations, such organizations have diverse characteristics, but
those that have strong ties with the ancestral land play a crucial role in promoting bilateral relations.
They deploy cultural diplomacy tactics to promote the national image of the ancestral land to the
country where the diaspora has settled (see Liu, 2011). Cultural performances and festivals not only
maintain homeland culture for diasporic descendants, but are also meant to convince wider publics
in the host country of the benefits of closer bilateral cooperation (Dickinson, 2014: 1). Nonetheless,
academic writing on diaspora associational life recognizes that diaspora associations reproduce state
or elite power, and particular representations of politics and culture (e.g. Dickinson, 2014). There are
also cases where diasporas and their homeland states have agendas that are out of sync. For
example, in the case of Armenia, diaspora efforts to seek international recognition of the Armenian
genocide have complicated the homeland government’s bilateral peace efforts with Turkey and
Azerbaijan (Shain, 2008; see also Joseph, 2012, on the Mexican diaspora in the US developing an
agenda separate from the Mexican government). Apart from migrant-sending states, migrant-
receiving states in the Global North are also enrolling diasporas as diplomatic actors.

Migrant-receiving states may turn to foreign-born populations settled in their countries (i.e.
diasporas of another country) to enhance their national soft power abroad. This can happen in two
ways. First, migrant-receiving states seek an economic advantage in emerging economies in the
Global South by encouraging their foreign-born populations who have returned or continue to
maintain influence in their countries of origin to bridge the interests of the migrant-receiving and
migrant-sending countries. Canada, for example, uses cultural and professional networking activities
to reach out to Chinese immigrants who have returned to China after securing permanent residency
or citizenship status in Canada (i.e. they become considered Canadians abroad; see Guo, 2014; Ho
and Ley, 2014). Such migrants serve as a potential resource through which the economic goals of
immigration countries can be advanced through the diaspora’s cultural knowledge and social
networks (see Zhang, 2010; Bitran and Tan, 2013; Ho and Ley, 2014).

Second, for migrant-receiving countries, their foreign-born populations who belong to the diaspora
of another country represent a means to introduce and entrench Western-centric models of
government and economy in migrant-sending states (Sinatti and Horst, 2014). Boyle and Ho (2017:
591) argue that diaspora-centred development agendas such as those promoted by the World Bank,
the European Commission, the United Nations Development Programme, and the US State
Department mobilize diasporas to ‘serve as effective bearers of Western recipes for success because
they seem culturally proximate, cognitively accessible, less vested in securing Western interests, and
more concerned with the wellbeing of their homelands and caring for intimate kin’. Diasporas thus
function as harbingers of soft power for western nation-states that have strong stakes and
representation in international organizations. Such diaspora-centred development projects can also
serve to mitigate the security concerns of migrant-receiving states faced with irregular migration,
such as by requiring countries receiving funding to implement frameworks for managing
undocumented migration (also see Boyle and Ho, 2017).

Drawing on the analyses above, we argue that diplomacy through diaspora extends
reconceptualization of state power and territory in three ways. First, the multi-directional aspects of
diaspora diplomacy prompt reconsideration of the geographies of political subjectivity vis-a`-vis the
state. In particular, diasporas disrupt the distinction between what is considered domestic or
foreign, aptly captured in Varadarajan’s (2010) term, ‘the domestic abroad’. As illustrated by the
examples discussed above, states engaging with diasporas articulate a mode of diplomacy that blurs
the boundary between domestic and foreign audiences. The artificial distinction between inside and
outside or domestic and foreign has been discussed in critical IR scholarship (e.g. Walker, 1993),
including on public diplomacy (Melissen, 2013). For example, Huijgh (2013: 65, 74) argues that
‘public diplomacy’s domestic and international dimensions are . . . two sides of the same coin,
bolstering one another’. Attending to the diplomatic role of diaspora communities augments this
argument, and shines a spotlight on what happens ‘in-between’ the domestic and the foreign. The
role of diasporas as neither fully domestic nor fully foreign not only challenges the very distinction of
internal and external, it also points us to the importance of liminal political subjectivities: an
ambiguous sense of actorness that is ‘betwixt and between’ that of insider and outsider (Turner,
1969; McConnell, 2017). Invoking the notion of liminality is not to imply that diasporas are
peripheral or second-order actors, but rather to highlight the potential leverage of their in-between
subjectivity. With liminality being underpinned by ambivalence (Turner, 1967; McConnell, 2017),
being of both domestic and foreign worlds brings with it the potential for creativity and innovation in
the field of diplomacy, but also unease and disruption.
Second, territorial assumptions that underpin diplomacy are troubled through diaspora diplomacy.
When considering non-state diplomacy, a spectrum of relationships between territory and diaspora
can be traced. At one end are examples such as NGOs, transnational corporations and de facto
religious communities that ‘represent constituencies that are not bounded by territory but by
common values, knowledge, and/or interests related to a specific issue’ (Betsill and Corell, 2008: 2).
In representing issues that transcend inter-state boundaries these diplomatic actors can claim to
represent globe-spanning constituencies based on gender, ethnicity and particular value systems,
and thus articulate a virtual and symbolic rather than territorially bounded form of authority
(Sending et al., 2011). For other non-state actors, however, territory is of heightened importance to
their articulation of diplomacy. Here we can think of indigenous communities and many stateless
nations for whom strong connections to land underpin their political identity and agendas (e.g.
Beier, 2010). Diaspora communities lie somewhere between these differing configurations of
diplomacy and territory. We suggest that it is productive to think of diplomacy through diaspora as a
mode of diplomacy that entails practices of both territorialization and deterritorialization, and which
holds the symbolic and practical roles of territory vis-a`-vis diplomacy in tension.

Third, the literature on diaspora and diplomacy presents diaspora communities primarily as tools of
diplomacy that are at the service of states. The state thereby emerges as the major actor in
diplomacy. Our article acknowledges the role of the state but sees it as one of many actors involved
in diplomacy; such an approach is attentive to the plural actors and manifold power negotiations
entailed in diplomacy. We find it useful to think of this in terms of ‘polylateralism’ (Wiseman, 2004,
2010), incorporating thus a third dimension to diplomacy, in addition to bilateralism and
multilateralism. ‘Polylateral diplomacy’ involves the conduct of relations between official entities –
such as a state or intergovernmental organization – and at least one unofficial non-state entity.
Diasporas lobby international organizations, the media, the private sector, NGOs and other actors to
reach out to migrant-sending states, migrant-receiving states and other states deemed supportive to
a ‘cause’ (Brinkenhoff, 2009; Newland, 2010). The action of diasporas brings the different
components of diplomacy into a diaspora assemblage where diasporas forge relations with an array
of social actors such as the state, intergovernmental or supranational organizations, civic
organizations, the market, and other diaspora actors (see Raj, 2015, and Cohen, 2017, for examples).
Each of those individual components can have material (and immaterial) properties and capacities of
their own, but also through interaction with one another exhibit properties and capacities as a
whole (see Dittmer, 2014). The individual components of an assemblage, and the assemblage as a
whole exhibit both territorializing and deterritorializing tendencies, through the constant negotiating
of power where ‘proximity and reach play across one another in particular ways’ (Allen and
Cochrane, 2010: 1087; Collier, 2006; Sassen, 2006).

We thus propose that diasporas function as diplomatic actors in their own right, at times acting in
the interest of the state and at other times realizing alternative political projects through their
interactions with the other social actors found in diaspora assemblages. In the following section we
detail the diplomatic tactics undertaken by diasporas to achieve agendas that challenge prevailing
power structures either in their countries of origin or countries of settlement.

IV Diplomacy by diasporas: Advocacy, mediation and representation

Diasporas can function as independent political actors at different times for different reasons, and
diplomacy by diasporas can take a variety of forms. As diplomatic actors, diasporas exercise
‘diplomatic subjectivity’. According to Constantinou (2013: 142), this ‘elevate[s] one into an
interlocutor whose separate will, interests, and ways of being deserve to be recognized as
constituting “external” affairs’. In this section we draw out three modes of engagement through
which diasporas realize their aspirations: advocacy, mediation and representation. Diaspora
diplomacy cannot be reduced to any one of these engagement modes, and indeed they are not
compartmentalized from one another, but analytically differentiating between them helps draw out
the different configurations of the relationship between diaspora and diplomacy. In discussing the
three engagement modes, we highlight the ways in which diasporas mobilize resources to advance
their cause or perform bridging functions, but we also acknowledge that diasporas can accentuate
divisions or exacerbate conflict. This section draws attention to how diasporas deploy diplomatic
tactics that engage local, national, supranational and global levels of power, and galvanize flows of
resources from site to site within the diaspora assemblages in which they are situated. In so doing,
diaspora diplomacy enacts action that traverses scales and mobilizes resources within diaspora
assemblages, engendering both territorializing and deterritorializing formations of power.

Turning first to advocacy as a mode of diaspora diplomacy, even though states mobilize their
diasporas to advocate on their behalf, diasporas can also advocate against powerful home and host
states to realize their own vision of what constitutes good governance and state-society relations.
Diaspora advocacy refers to actions taken by diasporas to champion causes and impact domestic
and foreign policies that affect their status in their countries of origin or countries of immigration.
For instance, the Kurdish diaspora in Europe utilized Kurdish language resources and satellite
television programmes as public diplomacy tools to mobilize dispersed Kurdish diaspora populations
into lobbying for recognition and rights in Turkey (see Adamson and Demetriou, 2007). A coalition of
Kurdish organizations demanded that minority rights be made a condition for Turkey’s entry into the
European Union. They invoked EU sanctioned democratic and human rights norms, and partnered
with international human rights organizations to lobby the European Parliament, the European
Commission and standing committees such as the EU–Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee and
the Committee of Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (see Berkowitz and Mugge, 2014). The
Kurdish case also illustrates how diasporas have been leading the way in the field of digital
diplomacy, reflecting the importance of advocacy in the cyber-sphere. For example, Watts (2004:
122) notes how the Kurdish diaspora ‘constructed a transnational advocacy community, a kind of
“Virtual Kurdistan West” that could not be located on any political map but had become a persistent
presence in international affairs’. As another example, the Falun Gong movement consists of
members of the Chinese diaspora who use lobbying and cultural diplomacy techniques to protest
the suppression of the group’s activities in China.2 Together with Western Falun Gong practitioners,
the Chinese emigrants – many of whom are well-educated professionals or investor migrants –
capitalize upon traditional and new media, and partner pro-democracy international organizations
such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch to gain public attention and lobby political
officials in Washington, Ottawa, Paris, London, and Canberra so as to seek legitimacy for the Falun
Gong movement (see Ownby, 2008).

Diasporas also advocate for rights in their host states, deploying diplomatic tactics to influence
decisions affecting their legal status and rights. An illustrative case is that of the Gurkhas. Since
colonial times Nepalese soldiers have been recruited by the British Army to be dispatched
internationally, but only in recent years have issues of unequal treatment surfaced. Campaigners
seeking recognition and rights for the Gurkhas leveraged legal tools made available when the
European Convention on Human Rights was incorporated into British domestic law by way of the
Human Rights Act in 1998 (Low, 2016). The activists utilized diplomatic and legal actions, and met
with British parliamentarians and government ministers to reinforce the demands of retired Gurkhas
for equal pensions and welfare schemes (Laksamba et al., 2013). Gurkha activists also pressed Nepali
political leaders to assist them through the Nepalese embassy in London and by instructing the
Nepalese Ministry of Foreign Affairs to expedite diplomatic dialogues (BBC, 28 November 2007). The
examples above exemplify transnational action by diasporas, focusing on both migrant-sending and
migrant-receiving states, as well as non-state and international actors, thus expanding ‘claim-making
from the local to national, supranational, and global levels of engagement’ (Koinova and
Karabegovic, 2017: 212). Their polylateral diplomacy appeals to scalar levels of power and draws on
flows of resources within diaspora assemblages to advance their cause.

Other than advocating for their own rights, diasporas can play a mediating role during political
crises. The proliferation of intrastate wars and secessionist movements since the latter decades of
the 20th century directs policy and academic attention to the role of diasporas. The dominant
narrative that has emerged portrays diasporas as peace-breakers that fuel and prolong conflicts
from afar. For example, Collier and Hoeffler (2004: 575) argue that ‘a large diaspora considerably
increases the risk of repeat conflict’ during civil wars. Diasporas have been depicted as ‘long distance
nationalists’ (Anderson, 1992) that promote extremism and radical agendas in the homeland
without having to face the realities of violent conflict themselves. An oft-cited example is the role of
the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora in fuelling conflict in the homeland through financing the LTTE
(Cochrane et al., 2009; Chalk, 2008).

Whilst it remains important to acknowledge the potential for diasporas to act in regressive and
destructive ways in situations of political crisis, a growing body of work is also documenting how
diasporas act as peace mediators ‘at different stages in a conflict and during efforts to negotiate and
implement a political settlement’ (Cochrane et al., 2009: 682; also see Baser and Swain, 2008; Shain,
2002, 2008). This role of diasporas as catalysts for peacebuilding can manifest in different forms
since they are a ‘key constituency of concern’ (Shain, 2008) for both sides in the homeland conflict
as well as host states and the international community. On a practical level, ‘while remittances sent
to rebel groups may perpetuate conflict, money sent from diaspora members to their families in the
homeland can also have an invaluable stabilising influence’ (Democratic Progress Institute, 2014: 16;
also see Fagen and Bump, 2006) and can assist with post-conflict reconstruction.

Diaspora groups can also have positive impacts on peace-building through human rights advocacy by
raising awareness among host state publics, and directly lobbying host state governments and
international organizations (Zunzer, 2004). The distanced location of these communities might mean
that they are often in a better position to assess the situation in the homeland and intervene in
positive ways. Shain (2008: 102) has traced this role of diasporas in ‘checking and countering the
vicissitudes of the homeland’s nationalism’ through the examples of the Armenian-American and
Jewish-American diasporic involvement in conflicts over Nagorno-Karabakh and the West Bank/Gaza
respectively. In such cases diaspora ‘are architects and initiators of policy’ and ‘host states and other
third parties . . . try to influence them accordingly’ (Shain, 2008: 125, 105; also see Sinatti, 2010).

It is this position of liminality – betwixt and between the domestic and the foreign, being outside the
conflict zone but also having an intimate connection to it – that invests diasporas with ‘specific
abilities as third party actors in pre-negotiations or even in formal talks over a political settlement’
(Cochrane, 2007: 21). These ‘abilities’ form core skills of mediation: they can bring parties to the
negotiation table and, once there, function as a bridge between political constituencies in the
homeland and international actors supporting conflict resolution, acting as both facilitators and
communicators (Baser and Swain, 2008; Zunzer, 2004). If diplomacy is underpinned by mediating
estrangement (Der Derian, 1987) while retaining separateness (Sharp, 2009; Constantinou, 2013),
then this role of diasporas as peace-brokers can be understood as a fundamentally diplomatic one,
even if the term diplomacy is mentioned in neither the academic nor policy literature on diaspora
and peace-building.

Yet, as liminal actors, diasporas play an ambiguous role during conflict resolution: they may be
perceived as peace-brokers by certain actors and as peace-breakers by others, and their roles vary
over time as conflict situations change (Democratic Progress Institute, 2014: 6). Illustrative of this
are the varying roles that Irish-Americans played during the peacebuilding process in Northern
Ireland. In the early years of the conflict the Irish diaspora in the US was an inhibitor to peace,
assuming ‘a militant stance and openly funding various Northern Ireland separatist groups’
(Democratic Progress Institute, 2014: 24). But as the Irish- American diaspora established
themselves financially and politically, their attitudes towards the conflict shifted. By pressurising
separatists groups in Northern Ireland and lobbying US government officials, this diaspora has been
credited with helping to create the conditions necessary for the peace talks that ultimately led to the
Good Friday Agreement in 1998 (Cochrane, 2007; Guelke, 1998). Diasporas thus constitute a ‘distinct
third level between interstate and domestic peacemaking’ (Shain, 2002: 115) but they are ultimately
themselves stakeholders in conflict situations, with their own priorities and objectives. The
involvement of diaspora representative in mediation efforts defies ‘the traditional definition of the
mediators as neutral, nonpartisan actors without an interest in the conflict’ (Baser and Swain, 2008:
18). A key example of this ambiguous role is that of the Afghan diaspora in the peace process in
Afghanistan. After the US military intervention in 2001–2, various groups within the Afghan diaspora
assumed significant political roles during the formal peace talks, and ‘as connectors between the
international community, the national administrations, international civil society and the private
sector’ (Zunzer, 2004: 5–6). Yet the fragmented tribal factions in the diaspora also exacerbated
ethnic and class divisions (Baser and Swain, 2008: 16).

The heterogeneity of diasporas, and the resultant contestations over legitimacy, have significant
impacts on the nature and geographies of diplomacy that they enact. This speaks to the third mode
of engagement through which diasporas do diplomacy, namely representation. Alongside
communication, a key function of diplomacy is representation (Sharp, 2009). An example that
highlights questions of legitimate representation is that of the collective ‘Indian diaspora’ (Raj, 2015)
as compared to the competing claims of the Sikh diaspora (Tatla, 1999). The Punjab state
government in India (a subnational branch of the Indian state) has sought to mobilize the Sikh
diaspora to participate in India’s development goals (Thandi, 2014), but the historically fraught
relationship between Sikh separatists – within India and extended extraterritorially to the Sikh
diaspora which has funded separatism – reflects the complex relationship between the political
goals of the Sikh diaspora and the Indian government’s own diaspora strategizing. This example also
unsettles assumptions that diplomacy is associated with a single territory (as in state diplomacy);
wecan see that the competing diasporas in question invoke overlapping territorial imaginations at
different levels of governance to secure greater legitimacy.

Where the role of representation takes on heightened importance is in the case of stateless
diasporas. Here, diasporas use diplomatic tactics, conventions and missions not only to advance
their cause through advocacy, but also as a mode of representation to gain political recognition on
the international stage and advance sovereignty claims (McConnell et al., 2012). The modes of
diplomatic representation such diasporas deploy vary in formality, from activist organizations such
as the Ahwaz Human Rights Organization representing their communities (the Ahwazi Arabs in Iran)
at the likes of the United Nations Forum on Minority Issues, to unofficial embassies run by
governments-in-exile. For instance, from its diasporic base in India, the Tibetan government-in-exile
runs 11 overseas missions across all continents. In addition to lobbying parliamentarians and foreign
ministries in the host countries and providing consular services to Tibetans in their ‘jurisdiction’, the
staff at these ‘Offices of Tibet’ are deemed by the diaspora to be the official representatives of the
Central Tibetan Administration, the Dalai Lama and the territory of Tibet, as defined by the exile
community (McConnell, 2016). As such, this mode of diplomacy is articulated both in the form of a
physical territory in exile (where the diaspora is based) and the form of an imagined territory back in
the homeland.

In other cases, diasporas represent the homeland by forming ‘governments-in-waiting’. During the
Arab Spring, the Libyan National Transitional Council before September 2011 and the Syrian interim
government from March 2013 were organizations largely based in their respective diasporas. They
were established ‘in the expectation that the institutions that have previously controlled their home
territory are, or are in the process of, collapsing. They set themselves up pre-emptively to take over
full political authority subsequent to that collapse’ (Rangwala, 2015: 216). These governments-in-
waiting are mediating modes of diaspora diplomacy. They act as a bridge between the well-
established exile elites and residents and local military commanders on the ground. However, the
impetus and formation of these organizations did not solely originate with their diasporas:
‘processes of international brokerage played a significant role’ (Rangwala, 2015: 215). In highlighting
the complex power relations between diasporas, states and external actors, the examples we
provide signal the overlap between diplomacy through diaspora and diplomacy by diaspora, and
bolster the case that diaspora diplomacy exemplifies polylateral diplomacy.

V Conclusion
Our article has bridged the scholarship on diplomacy and on diaspora by considering how states
engage in diplomacy through diasporas so as to advance national agendas, and how diasporas
themselves conduct diplomacy in order to achieve their own agendas (through advocacy, mediation
and representation strategies). Indeed, in many ways diasporas are quintessential diplomats,
mediating between homeland and host communities and playing key brokering roles. By discussing
examples of diplomacy through diaspora and diplomacy by diaspora, we have addressed questions
on who are the key actors engaged in diaspora diplomacy, how diplomatic work is engaged by and
through diasporas, and what are the geographies of diaspora diplomacy. To conclude, we pull
together these ideas to signal the wider relevance of our arguments.

Both ‘diaspora’ and ‘diplomacy’ are concepts that have undergone considerable expansion in recent
years, marking a shift away from understanding diaspora as a descriptive category and diplomacy as
the practice of state officials respectively. At the same time, scholars in both diplomacy studies (e.g.
Brubaker, 2005) and diaspora studies (e.g. Sending et al., 2011) have cautioned against
overextending those terms. There are also critiques of adding yet another prefix to diplomacy –
alongside the likes of paradiplomacy, NGO diplomacy, celebrity diplomacy, etc. – which offers an
analytically limited ‘explanation by naming’ (Sending et al., 2011: 529). Cognisant of this, our aim has
not been to weigh up the relative significance of diasporas as diplomatic actors (vis-a`-vis the state),
but rather to examine how the institution and practice of diplomacy are being reconfigured by the
engagement of diplomatic communities. We also delimit the notion of diaspora diplomacy through
addressing the who, how and where questions noted above. Diaspora diplomacy is, we suggest,
about the collective rather than the individual. Whilst diplomatic practices are often undertaken by
members of the diaspora, either formally through the designation of honorary consuls (Leira and
Neumann, 2013) or informally through the actions of citizen diplomats (Conley Tyler and Beyerinck,
2016), it is the actions of an identified or self-identified collective such as the Chinese or Indian
diaspora, Kurdish or Ahwazi-Arab minorities, Tibetan or Sri Lankan Tamil nationalists, Irish-American
peace-brokers, and Falun Gong or Gurkha activists based outside of their countries of origin that
underpin the analytical purchase of diaspora diplomacy. In further delimiting the notion of diaspora
diplomacy we have also argued that it is related to but should not be conflated with transnational
political practices. Rather, diaspora diplomacy is a particular mode of diaspora politics that goes
beyond participation in domestic politics, and which entails communication and mediation with
multiple stakeholders and audiences.

Our discussion of diaspora diplomacy also leads us to re-examine the characteristics of diasporas as
social formations: who counts or should be recognized as a diaspora, and what are the issues of
representation and legitimacy raised when diasporas engage in diplomacy? Foregrounding the
action that diasporas take to realize their own aspirations alerts us to those diasporas that do not fall
neatly within the framings of a national or ethno-national vision, such as the competing aspirations
expressed by a religious diaspora like Falun Gong whose members can also be considered part of the
Chinese diaspora, or the Sikh diaspora with entrenched historical memories of experiencing ethnic
violence inflicted by the Indian government. These examples highlight the complex relationship that
diasporas have with a government’s own diaspora strategising. Diplomatic tactics by diasporas can
impact governance and society in either or both the sending and receiving contexts. Diaspora
diplomacy thus brings into sharp relief the nature of legitimate representation which underpins
diplomacy as a practice: who has the right to speak for and represent a particular community? Do
second and third generation migrants have the same claim of representation as first generation
emigrants? What about re-migrants with double-diasporic identifications? Whose interests do they
represent? We suggest that further research in these directions is needed to deepen understanding
of the relationship between diasporas and the representative function of diplomacy.

Reflecting on the geographical dimensions of diaspora diplomacy, our discussion has considered the
multiple stakeholders and audiences that diasporas engage (i.e. polylateral diplomacy), thereby
challenging conventional approaches that premise diplomacy on state power and bounded territory.
We suggest that the transnational and scalar actions of diasporas point to the multi-directional
aspects of diaspora diplomacy. This leads us to conceptualize diaspora diplomacy as diaspora
assemblages composed of states, non-state and other international actors that function as
constituent components of assemblages, connected through networks and flows of people,
information and resources. Such diaspora assemblages may at times work to reinforce state power,
thereby reterritorializing, or at other times, exhibit deterritorializing forms of power. Diaspora
diplomacy produces ‘new capabilities’ (Dittmer, 2014: 388) as the components constituting acts of
diaspora diplomacy within diaspora assemblages come together or become disaggregated. This
understanding thereby opens productive avenues for future research around the dynamic spatial
articulations of diaspora diplomacy.

Supporting this conceptualization of diaspora diplomacy is our argument that diasporas function as
liminal actors betwixt and between the domestic and foreign. The study of diaspora diplomacy
directs us towards reconsidering the artificiality of the distinction between domestic and foreign
constituencies that has been so central to conventional IR theorizations and policy agendas (Walker,
1993). As liminal actors, diasporas can mobilize resources outside of the national territory, perform
bridging functions or play peace-building roles in the service of the state. Equally, the liminality of
diasporas means they can mobilize those same resources to realize alternative political visions, in
opposition to the state, such as by influencing developments within the national territory to rally
support, advocating their cause to powerful non-state or international actors, and invoking
representations of multiple territories at overlapping scales or drawing on both physical territory
and imagined territory to enhance the legitimacy of their claims. The liminal political subjectivity of
diasporas positions them as diplomatic actors who can leverage being between the domestic and
foreign to take ownership for how diplomacy develops in the interests of or against the state. In
sum, diaspora diplomacy proffers insights into the changing nature of both diplomacy and diaspora
formations, and what this means for studies of statehood, sovereignty and territory.

Acknowledgement
We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers and Nina Laurie for their feedback on earlier drafts of
this paper.

Notes
1. Gillespie and Webb’s (2013) edited volume Diaspora sand Diplomacy extends this analysis in
interesting ways, but solely through the lens of diasporic broadcasters and audiences in relation to
the diplomatic role of the BBC World Service.
2. The group combines qigong (a Chinese system of physical exercises and breathing techniques)
with Buddhist meditation to promote physical and mental well-being, but political leaders in China
accuse it of encouraging cult-like practices.

References
Acuto M (2013) Global Cities, Governance and Diplomacy: The Urban Link. London: Routledge.
Adamson FB and Demetriou M (2007) Remapping the boundaries of ‘state’ and ‘national identity’:
Incorporating diasporas into IR theorizing. European Journal of International Relations 13(4): 489–
526.
Agnew J (1994) The territorial trap: The geographical assumptions of international relations theory.
Review of International Political Economy 1(1): 53–80.
Agnew J (2005) Sovereignty regimes: Territoriality and state authority in contemporary world
politics. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 95(2): 437–461.
Aldecoa F and Keating M (1999) Paradiplomacy in Action: The Foreign Relations of Subnational
Governments. Portland: Frank Cass.
Allen J (2011) Topological twists: Power’s shifting geographies. Dialogues in Human Geography 1(3):
283–298.
Allen J and Cochrane A (2010) Assemblages of state power: Topological shifts in the organization of
government and politics. Antipode 42(5): 1071–1089.
Anderson B (1992) Long-Distance Nationalism: World Capitalism and the Rise of Identity Politics.
Amsterdam: Centre of Asian Studies Amsterdam.
Antonsich M (2009) On territory, the nation-state and the crisis of the hyphen. Progress in Human
Geography 33(6): 789–806.
Arthur P (1991) Diasporan intervention in international affairs: Irish America as a case study.
Diaspora: Journal of Transnational Studies 1(2): 143–162.
Balfour R, Carta C and Raik K (2015) The European External Action Service and National Diplomacies:
From Complementarity to Convergence? Farnham: Ashgate.
Baser B and Swain A (2008) Diasporas as peacemakers: Third party mediation in homeland conflicts.
International Journal on World Peace 25(3): 7–28.
Beier JM (2010) Indigenous Diplomacies. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Berkowitz L and Mugge LM (2014) Transnational diaspora lobbying: Europeanization and the Kurdish
question. Journal of Intercultural Studies 35(1): 74–90.
Betsill MM and Corell E (2008) NGO Diplomacy: The Influence of Nongovernmental Organizations in
International Environmental Negotiations. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Bitran M and Tan S (2013) Diaspora nation: An inquiry into the economic potential of diaspora
networks in Canada. Available at: https://mowatcentre.ca/dia spora-nation/ (accessed 17 November
2016).
Bjola C and Holmes M (2015) Digital Diplomacy: Theory and Practice. London: Routledge.
Bjola C and Kornprobst M (2013) Understanding International Diplomacy: Theory, Practice and
Ethics. Abingdon: Routledge.
Boccagni P, Lafleur JM and Levitt P (2016) Transnational politics as cultural circulation: Toward a
conceptual understanding of migrant political participation on the move. Mobilities 11(3): 444–463.
Boyle M and Ho ELE (2017) Sovereign power, biopower, and the reach of the West in an age of
diaspora-centred development. Antipode 49(3): 577–596.
Brand LA (2014) Arab uprisings and the changing frontiers of transnational citizenship: Voting from
abroad in political transitions. Political Geography 41: 54–63.
Brinkenhoff JM (2009) Digital Diasporas: Identity and Transnational Engagement. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) (2007) Lobby group wants Nepal PM to press British MoD
direct on Gurkha rights. BBC Monitoring South Asia, 28 November. Available at: Factiva.
Brubaker R (2005) The ‘diaspora’ diaspora. Ethnic and Racial Studies 28(1): 1–19.
Chalk P (2008) The tigers abroad: How the LTTE diaspora supports the conflict in Sri Lanka.
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs 9(2): 97–104.
Clifford J (1994) Diasporas. Cultural Anthropology 9(3): 302–338.
Cochrane F (2007) Civil society beyond the state: The impact of diaspora communities on peace
building. Global Media Journal: Mediterranean Edition 2(2): 19–29.
Cochrane F, Baser B and Swain A (2009) Home thoughts from abroad: Diasporas and peace-building
in Northern Ireland and Sri Lanka. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 32(8): 681–704.
Cohen N (2017) Diaspora strategies: Actors, members, and spaces. Geography Compass 11(3): 1–13.
Collier P and Hoeffler A (2004) Greed and grievance in civil War. Oxford Economic Papers 56: 563–
594.
Collier SJ (2006) Global assemblages. Theory, Culture & Society 23(2–3): 399–401.
Collyer M (2014) A geography of extra-territorial citizenship: Explanations of external voting.
Migration Studies 2(1): 55–72.
Collyer M and King R (2014) Producing transnational space: International migration and the extra-
territorial reach of state power. Progress in Human Geography 39(2): 185–204.
Conley Tyler M and Beyerinck C (2016) Citizen diplomacy. In: Constantinou C, Kerr P and Sharp P
(eds) The SAGE Handbook of Diplomacy. London, Sage, 521–9.
Constantinou CM (2013) Between statecraft and humanism: Diplomacy and its forms of knowledge.
International Studies Review 15(2): 141–162.
Constantinou C and Der Derian J (2010) Sustainable Diplomacies. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Constantinou C, Cornago N and McConnell F (2017) Transprofessional diplomacy. Brill Research
Perspectives in Diplomacy and Foreign Policy 1(4): 1–66.
Cooper AF and Hocking B (2000) Governments, nongovernmental organisations and the re-
calibration of diplomacy. Global Society 14(3): 361–376.
Cooper AF, English J and Thakur RC (2002) Enhancing Global Governance: Towards a New Diplomacy.
New York: United Nations University Press.
Copeland D (2009) Guerilla Diplomacy: Rethinking International Relations. Boulder: Lynne Rienner.
Cornago N (2010) On the normalization of sub-state diplomacy. The Hague Journal of Diplomacy
5(1–2): 11–36.
Cornago N (2013) Plural Diplomacies: Normative Predicaments and Functional Imperatives. Leiden
and Boston: Martinus Nijhoff.
De´lano A and Gamlen A (2014) Comparing and theorizing state–diaspora relations. Political
Geography 41: 43–53.
Institute Democratic Progress (2014) Makers or Breakers of Peace: The Role of Diasporas in Conflict
Resolution. London: Democratic Progress Institute.
Der Derian J (1987) On Diplomacy: A Genealogy of Western Estrangement. Oxford: Blackwell.
Dickinson J (2014) Making space for India in post-apartheid South Africa: Narrating diasporic
subjectivities through classical song and dance. Emotion, Space and Society 13: 32–39.
Dickinson J (2017) The political geographies of diaspora strategies: Rethinking the ‘sending state’.
Geography Compass 11(2): 1–12.
Dittmer J (2014) Geopolitical assemblages and complexity. Progress in Human Geography 38(3):
385–401.
Dittmer J (2015). Everyday diplomacy: UKUSA intelligence cooperation and geopolitical assemblages.
Annals of the Association of American Geographers 105(3): 604–619.
Duchacek ID, Latouche D and Stevenson G (1988) Perforated Sovereignties and International
Relations: Trans-Sovereign Contacts of Subnational Governments. New York: Greenwood Press.
Elden S (2006) Contingent sovereignty, territorial integrity and the sanctity of borders. The SAIS
Review of International Affairs 26(1): 11–24.
Elden S (2013) The Birth of Territory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Epp R (2001) At the wood’s edge: Towards a theoretical clearing for indigenous diplomacies in
international relations. In: Crawford RMA and Jarvis DSL (eds) International Relations – Still an
American Social Science? Towards Diversity in International Thought. Albany: State University of
New York Press, 299–324.
Fagen PW and Bump MN (2006) Remittances in conflict and crises: How remittances sustain
livelihoods in war, crises, and transitions to peace. Available at: http://ipccwg2.
gov/njlite_download.php? id¼5433 (accessed 8 December 2016).
Gamlen A (2008) The emigration state and the modern geopolitical imagination. Political Geography
27(8): 840–856.
Gandhi A (2002) The Indian diaspora in global advocacy. Global Networks 2(4): 357–362.
Gilboa E (2008) Searching for a theory of public diplomacy. The Annals of the American Academy of
Political and Social Science 616(1): 55–77.
Gillespie M and Webb A (eds) (2013) Diasporas and Diplomacy. London: Routledge.
Gonzalez III JL (2012) Diaspora Diplomacy: Philippine Migration and its Soft Power Influences.
Minneapolis: Mill City.
Gregory B (2016) Mapping boundaries in diplomacy’s public dimension. The Hague Journal of
Diplomacy 11(1): 1–25.
Guelke A (1998) Northern Ireland: International and North/South issues. In: Crotty W and Schmitt D
(eds) Ireland and the Politics of Change. London: Longman.
Guo S (2014) From international migration to transnational diaspora: Theorizing ‘double diaspora’
from the experience of Chinese Canadians in Beijing. Journal of International Migration and
Integration 17(1): 153–171.
Heine J (2006) On the manner of practising the new diplomacy. Centre for International Governance
Working Paper 11. Available at: https://www.cigionline.org/publications/manner-practising-new-
diplomacy (accessed 18 September 2017).
Ho ELE (2011) ‘Claiming’ the diaspora: Sending state strategies, elite mobility and the spatialities of
citizenship. Progress in Human Geography 35(6): 757–772.
Ho ELE (2016) China’s diaspora and return migration. In: Iredale R and Guo F (eds) Handbook of
Chinese Migration. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 199–214.
Ho ELE and Ley D (2014) ‘Middling’ Chinese returnees or immigrants from Canada? The ambiguity of
return migration and claims to modernity. Asian Studies Review 38(1): 36–52.
Ho ELE, Hickey M and Yeoh BSA (2015) Special issue introduction: New research directions and
critical perspectives on diaspora strategies. Geoforum 59: 153–159.
Huijgh E (2013) Changing tunes for public diplomacy: Exploring the domestic dimension. Exchange:
The Journal of Public Diplomacy 2: 61–73. Huijgh E (2016) Public diplomacy. In: Constantinou C,
Kerr P and Sharp P (eds) The SAGE Handbook of Diplomacy. London: Sage, 437–450.
International Diaspora Engagement Alliance (IdEA) (2016) Diplomats, diaspora & dynamism.
Available at: http://www.diasporaalliance.org/diplomats-diaspora-dynamism/ (accessed 18
September 2017).
Jones A and Clark J (2015) Mundane diplomacies for the practice of European geopolitics. Geoforum
62: 1–12.
Joseph DH (2012) Mexico’s concentration on consular services in the United States. The Hague
Journal of Diplomacy 7(2): 227–236.
Kerr P and Wiseman G (2013) Diplomacy in a Globalizing World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Koinova M and Karabegovic D (2017) Diasporas and transitional justice: Transnational activism from
local to global levels of engagement. Global Networks 17(2): 212–233.
Kuus M (2014) Geopolitics and Expertise: Knowledge and Authority in European Diplomacy.
Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.
Kuus M (2016) Diplomacy and audit: Technologies of knowledge in Europe. Geoforum 68: 39–47.
Laguerre MS (1999) State, diaspora, and transnational politics: Haiti reconceptualised. Millennium:
Journal of International Studies 28(3): 633–651 .
Laksamba CK, Adhikari KP, Dhakal LP and Gellner D (2013) British Gurkha Pension Policies and ex-
Gurkha Campaigns: A Review. Nepal: Centre for Nepal Studies.
Larner W (2007) Expatriate experts and globalising governmentalities: The New Zealand diaspora
strategy. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 32(3): 331–345.
Leira H and Neumann I (2013) Consular diplomacy. In: Kerr P and Wiseman G (eds) Diplomacy in a
Globalizing World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 160–174.
Leung MWH (2015) Engaging a temporal–spatial stretch: An inquiry into the role of the state in
cultivating and claiming the Chinese knowledge diaspora. Geoforum 59: 187–196.
Liu H (2011) An emerging China and diasporic Chinese: Historicity, state, and international relations.
Journal of Contemporary China 20(72): 813–832.
Low KEY (2016) Migrant warriors and transnational lives: Constructing a Gurkha diaspora. Ethnic and
Racial Studies 39(5): 840–857.
Ma Mung E (2004) Dispersal as a resource. Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies 13(2): 211–
225.
Mavroudi E (2008) Palestinians in diaspora, empowerment and informal political space. Political
Geography 27: 57–73.
McConnell F (2009) De facto, displaced, tacit: The sovereign articulations of the Tibetan
Government-in-Exile. Political Geography 28: 343–352.
McConnell F (2016) Rehearsing the State: The Political Practices of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile.
Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.
McConnell F (2017) Liminal geopolitics: The subjectivity and spatiality of diplomacy at the margins.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 42(1): 139–152.
McConnell F, Moreau T and Dittmer J (2012) Mimicking state diplomacy: The legitimizing strategies
of unofficial diplomacies. Geoforum 43: 804–814.
McGregor J (2009) Associational links with home among Zimbabweans in the UK: Reflections on
long-distance nationalisms. Global Networks 9(2): 185–208.
Melissen J (2005) The New Public Diplomacy: Soft Power in International Relations. Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Melissen J (2013) Public diplomacy. In: Cooper AC, Heine J and Thakur R (eds) The Oxford Handbook
of Moder Diplomacy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 436–52.
Mountz A (2013) Political geography I: Reconfiguring geographies of sovereignty. Progress in Human
Geography 37(6): 829–841.
Mullings B (2012) Governmentality, diaspora assemblages and the ongoing challenge of
‘development’. Antipode 44(2): 406–427.
Mwagiru M (2012) The African Union’s diplomacy of the diaspora: Context, challenges and
prospects. African Journal of Conflict Resolution 12(2): 73–85.
Neumann IB (2012) At Home with the Diplomats: Inside a European Foreign Ministry. New York:
Cornell University Press.
Newland K (2010) Voice After Exit: Diaspora Advocacy. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute.
Nicolson H (1939) Diplomacy: A Guide to the Conduct of Contemporary Foreign Affairs. London:
Constable & Co. Ltd.
Nye JS (2004) Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. New York: Public Affairs.
Ownby D (2008) Falun Gong and the Future of China. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Painter J (2006) Prosaic geographies of stateness. Political Geography 25(7): 752–774.
Painter J (2010) Rethinking territory. Antipode 42(5): 1090–1118.
Ragazzi F (2009) Governing diasporas. International Political Sociology 3(4): 378–397.
Raj DS (2015) The overseas citizen of India and emigrant infrastructure: Tracing the
deterritorializations of diaspora strategies. Geoforum 59: 159–168.
Rana K (2009) India’s diaspora diplomacy. The Hague Journal of Diplomacy 4(3): 361–372.
Rangwala G (2015) The creation of governments-in-waiting: The Arab uprisings and legitimacy in the
international system. Geoforum 66: 215–23.
Riordan S (2003) The New Diplomacy. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Ross C (2002) Public diplomacy comes of age. Washington Quarterly 25(2): 75–83.
Sandler S (2004) Towards a conceptual framework of world Jewish politics: State, nation and
diaspora in a Jewish foreign policy. Israel Affairs 10(1): 301–312.
Sassen S (2006) Territory, Authority, Rights from Medieval to Global Assemblages. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Satow E (1922) A Guide to Diplomatic Practice. London: Longman.
Schiller NG (2005) Transnational social fields and imperialism: Bringing a theory of power to
transnational studies. Anthropological Theory 5(4): 439–461.
Sending OJ, Pouliot V and Neumann IB (2011) The future of diplomacy: Changing practices, evolving
relationships. International Journal: Canada’s Journal of Global Policy Analysis 66(3): 527–542.
Shain Y (2002) The role of diasporas in conflict perpetuation or resolution. SAIS Review 22(2): 115–
144.
Shain Y (2008) Kinship and Diasporas in International Affairs. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press.
Sharp P (2009) Diplomatic Theory of International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sharp P and Wiseman G (2012) American Diplomacy. Leiden: Martinus Nijoff Publishers.
Sinatti G (2010) Diasporas as partners in conflict resolution and peacebuilding. Available at:
http://hdlhandle.net/1765/40438 (accessed 18 September 2017).
Sinatti G and Horst C (2014) Migrants as agents of development: Diaspora engagement discourse
and practice in Europe. Ethnicities 15(1): 134–152.
Smith MP (2003) Transnationalism, the state, and the extraterritorial citizen. Politics and Society
31(4): 467–502.
Steinberg PE (2009) Sovereignty, territory, and the mapping of mobility: A view from the outside.
Annals of the Association of American Geographers 99(3): 467–495.
Strange S (1992) States, firms and diplomacy. International Affairs 68(1): 1–15.
Tarrow S (2001) Transnational politics: Contention and institutions in international politics. Annual
Review of Political Science 4(1): 1–20.
Tatla DS (1999) The Sikh Diaspora: the Search for Statehood. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Thandi SS (2014) The Punjab paradox: Understanding the failures of Diaspora engagement. Diaspora
Studies 7(1): 42–55.
Tölöyan K (1991) The nation-state and its others: In lieu of a preface. Diaspora: A Journal of
Transnational Studies 1(1): 3–7.
Tomiczek M (2011) Diaspora diplomacy – about a new dimension of diplomacy, the example of a
new emigration non-governmental organisation. Journal of Education Culture and Society 2: 105–
123.
Turner V (1967) The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Turner V (1969) The Ritual Process: Structure and Antistructure. Chicago: Aldine.
Varadarajan L (2010) The Domestic Abroad: Diasporas in International Relations. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Walker RJB (1993) Inside/Outside: International Relations as Political Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Watson A (1984) Diplomacy: The Dialogue Between States. London: Routledge.
Watts NF (2004) Institutionalizing virtual Kurdistan West. In: Migdal JS (ed.) Boundaries and
Belonging: States and Societies in the Struggle to Shape Identities and Local Practices. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 121–147.
Wiseman G (2004) ‘Polylateralism’ and new modes of global dialogue. In: Jönsson C and Langhorne R
(eds) Diplomacy: Problems and Issues in Contemporary Diplomacy. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Wiseman G (2010) ‘Polylateralism’: Diplomacy’s third dimension. Public Diplomacy Magazine
1(Summer): 24–39.
Yun SH (2012) Relational public diplomacy: The perspective of sociological globalism. International
Journal of Communication 6: 2199–2219.
Zarifian J (2014) The Armenian-American lobby and its impact on U.S. foreign policy. Society 51(5):
503–12
Zhang K (2010) Flows of people and the Canada-China relationship. China Papers No. 10. Available
at: http:// www.asiapacific.ca/sites/default/files/filefield/China_ Papers_10_0.pdf. (accessed 17
November 2016).
Zunzer W (2004) Diaspora communities and civil conflict transformation. Berghof Occasional Paper
Nr. 26. Berlin: Berghof Research Centre for Constructive Conflict Management.