Paper short abstract:

This paper advances the notion of ‘embodied diplomacy’ through an analysis of the uniforms imposed by Tajikistan’s government to pilgrims during the annual Hajj, and which include veils and shirts displaying Tajikistan’s flag.

Paper long abstract:

The word diplomacy conveys the representation, negotiation, mediation and reconciliation of nation-states in the sphere of international politics. In this paper, however, I seek to go beyond treating diplomacy as the act of conducting foreign relations through professionalised diplomatic personal. Rather, by exploring dress as an 'assemblage of body modifications and/or supplements' (Eicher and Roach-Higgings 1992, in Hansen 2004: 371) in a manner that brings attention to the limitations of understanding the human body as simply 'biological' or 'natural' and clothing and body modifications as 'cultural' or 'artificial', this paper analyses the central significance of the politics of dress to Tajikistan's attempts to present the 'authentic nation' both within Tajikistan and to international audiences. I argue that the clothing expected of Tajikistan's pilgrims to Mecca and Medina during the Hajj is a case of embodied diplomacy. In 2010 Tajikistan's President decreed a law by which all hojjis are compelled to wear a uniform with the Tajik flag and the name 'Tajikistan' embroidered upon the women's headscarves and the men's shirt-pockets during the course of the pilgrimage. According to Tajikistan's government, the logic behind this requirement is that Tajikistan's pilgrims must be recognised as Tajiks in Saudi Arabia and must conform to 'proper' forms of behaviour during the pilgrimage not only because of their being Muslims in the process of conducting a central Islamic rite, but because they are representing the Tajik nation during their sojourns away from the home country.