From 9 to 11 December 2016 a workshop entitled “Towards a transcultural history of diplomacy” was held at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Tokyo. The workshop was organized by Lisa Hellman and Birgit Tremml-Werner, as part of the core-to-core global history collaborative. During these days, mid-career scholars and professors from Japan and several European countries gathered to address various themes of a new history of diplomacy with a focus on the early modern period including the nineteenth century. The geographical focus of the workshop papers lay on Asia, Europe and Africa.

Two aims were defined beforehand. First, to establish a profound dialogue between scholars of different historiographical traditions and, second, to tap the potential of the participants’ awareness of terminological and linguistic challenges for the sake of finding a more appropriate, broadly accepted language for dissemination and research.

The workshop covered six thematical panels, each of them zooming in on a certain trope of recent research agendas of a cultural history of diplomacy and ended with an open discussion forum on terminological questions. Throughout the workshop both paper presentations and stimulating discussions emphasized language diversity and the necessity to stress translation and dissemination processes as they shaped diplomatic understanding and imperial discourses until today. While the recurring focus on the multitude of non-elite actors and how plural tasks and identities of trans-social actors came to be recognized as an already well-established theme, workshop participants also raised a strong plea for working comparatively on diplomatic practices.

9 December 2016

In her keynote speech, Matsukata Fuyuko (The University of Tokyo, Historiographical Research Institute) outlined challenging positions towards a comparative or transcultural approach to early modern diplomatic relations. Based on the example of the VOC and the Dutch in Tokugawa Japan’s foreign relations, she critically examined the long standing argument in Japanese diplomatic history that tributary was replaced by treaty. Instead, she suggested an innovative categorization of early modern foreign relations into provisional letter diplomacy and permanent residence diplomacy (“Letter Diplomacy vs. Diplomats Diplomacy”), stressing the flexibility of letter diplomacy and its ability to bridge the gap between two different world views as to understanding pre-modern transcultural diplomacy. In addition, she emphasized the close links between diplomatic relations and the control of foreign trade, while objecting the tributary relations were simply replaced by treaties.

Panel I (Information Networks and Communication) analyzed how diverse diplomatic actors’ access to certain information and language use affected bi- and multilateral communication in different Asian and European transcultural settings.

Discussant: Antonella ROMANO (École des hautes études en sciences sociales)

Kapil RAJ (École des hautes études en sciences sociales), Portuguese as a Multiway Diplomatic Language between Malabar Kingdoms and Europeans in the 17^th and 18^th Centuries 

Lisa HELLMAN (The University of Tokyo), Drawing the Line: Intercultural Interactions in the Mapping of the Central Asian Borderlands

Sophie HOLM (University of Helsinki), ‘...the King answers by himself in Swedish’ – The Languages of Diplomacy in 18^th Century Sweden

Panel II (The Role of Symbolism and Ceremonies) focused on specific means of ceremonial and symbolic actions and discussed socio-cultural dynamics reflecting in the materiality and value of objects and commodities as they circulated nominally within diplomatic exchange.

Discussant: YAMAMOTO Koji (The University of Tokyo)

Rémi DEWIÈRE (Université Paris 1), ‘Ismael begged Osman to give him a few christians’, Diplomatic Gifts and Economic Negotiations between Tripoli and the Borno Sultanate (16^th -17^th C.)

Michael TALBOT (University of Greenwich), Negotiators, not Diplomats: Ambassadors and the Notion of Friendship in Ottoman-British Relations

Carla TRONU (Kyoto University), Religion and Early Modern Intercultural Diplomacy between the Iberian Kingdoms and Japan

MATSUI Hiroe (Ochanomizu Women’s University), How to Discuss 'Japanese history’ in a Global Context? Using Diplomatic Contacts in Germany for the Empress Shōken’s Western Court Dress

Panel III (Transcultural Diplomacy from Below) specifically focused on how non-elite actors shaped pre-nineteenth-century foreign relations between geographically, politically and culturally separate entities.

Discussant: SANO Mayuko (International Research Center for Japanese Studies)

Joachim ÖSTLUND (Lund University), Swedish ransom diplomacy in Ottoman North Africa, 1650–1800

Sari NAUMAN (Gothenborg University), Farmer and Diplomat – Towards a Broadening of Concepts in Early Modern Time

Ana BUSQUETS (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya), Different Aims, different Embassies: Fujian and Manila Seventeenth Century Diplomatic Contacts

Felicia GOTTMANN (University of Dundee), Glocal Politics and Transcultural Diplomacy: A Prussian East Indiaman in 1750s Cape Verde

10 December 2016                                

Panel IV (Trans-cultural Treaty Making and Legal Aspects) looked at trans-cultural treaty making and how semantic and conceptual differences of rulership and power relations challenged the understanding of legal concepts.
Discussant: Robert ESKILDEN (International Christian University)

FUKUOKA Mariko (National Museum of Japanese History), Comparing Japanese and Chinese Diplomacy of the Transitional Period from Early Modern to Modern: Treaty-Negotiations in 1860-61 with the Prussian Embassy

Michael FACIUS (Freie Universität Berlin), Whose country? Satsuma Diplomatic Culture in the Anglo-Satsuma War

SHIOYA Akifumi (University of Tsukuba), Reconsideration of the Treaty of Kulja (1851): Imperial Russian Diplomacy in a Eurasian Context

Panel V (Conflicting Actors) addressed the means and motivations behind diplomatic contacts between actors of differing ranks, as well as the impact of such practices and clashes between commercial and state interests on the broader development of an international law.

Discussant: SHIMADA Ryuto (The University of Tokyo)

Dorothée GOETZE (Bonn University), On behalf of the Dynasty: Swedish and Hessian-Kassel Relations in the 1720s

Cátia ANTUNES (Leiden University), Dutch-Portuguese Diplomatic Encounters, 1640-1703: Exchanges, Sovereignty and ‘World Peace’

Leos MÜLLER (Stockholm University), Conflict between Diplomacy and Mercantile Interest. Sweden’s Neutrality and Shipping c. 1650-1820

Carl FEDDERSEN (Agder University), Diplomatic Models and Modes of Interpretation in Transcultural Diplomacy: The Case of VOC and Makassar Interaction 1637-1668

Panel VI (Conflicting Diplomatic Ideas) focused on diplomatic concepts and practices in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Introducing concrete episodes of transcultural diplomatic contacts between the Iberians and East Asians it showed how diverse ideas were handled and translated into foreign and new contexts.

Discussant: OTA Atsushi (Keio University)

Birgit TREMML-WERNER (University of Zurich), Emblematic Moments in Early Modern Hispano-Japanese Diplomatic Exchange

Csaba OLÁH (International Christian University), Reshaping of traditional diplomatic patterns in 16-17^th century China and Japan

Panel VII (A Common Terminology?) was set out to search for a global vocabulary of diplomacy. This experimental session was designed to reflect on terminological inconsistencies and the challenges arising when confronting original terms in the languages of the source material with the language of academia. Workshop participants were asked to single out terms as being particularly crucial or problematic, and use them as a basis for a general discussion on the terminology of early modern diplomatic contacts.

The workshop ended with an excursion to the National Museum of Japanese History (Rekihaku) on 11 December 2016, where a final discussion on possibilities how to collaborate in the future followed a guided tour by Fukuoka Mariko.