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Contribution short abstract:

International relations and ethnology have been in dialogue since the establishment of both academic disciplines. Their relationship is far however from peaceful coexistence. This speech aims at discussing focal problems related to bringing anthropology into IR theory and practice - and vice versa.

Contribution long abstract:

Ethnology and international relations (IR), two disciplines which are possibly the most distant from each other and stand at the two poles of micro and macro perspectives, nevertheless have much in common. It must be admitted however, that in IR mainstream scholarship, the need to reach for ethnological knowledge, with its micro-perspective, often stereotyped as dealing exclusively with exotic tribes or local knowledge was marginalised for years.

The shock of 9/11 caused many IR scholars and politicians to turn - again - to anthropology. The shock resulting from the violation of the status quo, reinforced by the events of the so-called Arab Spring a decade later, the need to update and nuance the knowledge about the 'Other' (but also of what constitutes 'we') and the related gradual delegitimisation of the essentialising and homogenising use of categories such as 'Islam', 'West' 'Asian cultures', 'Arabs', the need to explain the reasons for the existence of different rationalities, as well as the reflection on the processes of 'difference production' by discourses of power, have forced IR researchers to take an interest in micro-perspectives, in the study of culture and in the output of a science that had reflection on the 'Other', on 'difference' and on 'culture' in its blood - cultural anthropology. The aim of this contribution is to discuss contemporary entanglements of IR and ethnology, also in the public discourse, including the example of the author's participant observation/observant participation in the arena of UNESCO intangible heritage convention.