Paper short abstract:

By amplifying the idea that a ‘meal is the best synecdoche for diplomacy’ I trace how the notion of ‘sofra’ (table/dining) is deployed by a cosmopolitan Muslim Dervish brotherhood in Bosnia-Herzegovina as a mode of 'being diplomatic' to forge and mediate relationships between various ‘Others’.

Paper long abstract:

This paper contributes to the debates on the nature of diplomacy in the modern world which seek to critically examine 'the sites' where diplomacy actually takes place (Neumann 2013). One such 'site' which epitomises the quintessence of diplomatic practice is dining and food sharing. By amplifying this axiom beyond state-level diplomacy, I trace how the notion of 'sofra' (table/dining etiquette) is deployed by a trans-national Muslim Dervish brotherhood from Bosnia-Herzegovina that is part of a larger network spanning across the frontiers of Southeast Europe and the East Mediterranean. I suggests that the notion of 'sofra' embodies a mode of 'being diplomatic' that enables the dervish brotherhood to forge, maintain and/or mediate relationships between various linguistic, national, and confessional 'Others'. This paper focuses ethnographically on the lives of stories and arguments, moral idioms and exempla, as well as skills and etiquette that the dervish disciples associate with 'sofra' as a form of 'dining diplomacy' through which the dervish disciples seek to mediate and pursue their cosmopolitan identities in the surrounding world ridden by ethnonational and sectarian separations.