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Marsden Civility 8 Jan 2018.pdf (373.32 kB)

Civility and diplomacy: trust and dissimulation in transnational Afghan trading networks

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journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-09, 11:40 authored by Magnus MarsdenMagnus Marsden
This article explores the relationship between civility and diplomacy in the transnational commercial activities of traders from Afghanistan. The commodity traders on which the article focuses – most of whom are involved in the export and wholesale of commodities made in China - form long-distance networks that criss-cross multiple parts of Asia and are rooted in multiple trading nodes across the region, including the Chinese commercial city of Yiwu, Moscow, and Odessa. Much scholarship associates both diplomacy and civility with impression management and dissimulation and therefore identifies such modes of behaviour as being inimical to the fashioning of enduring ties of trust. Analysis of ethnographic material concerning the traders’ understandings of being diplomatic as well as the ways in which they seek to conform to contested local notions of civility, however, furnishes unique insights into the ways in which they build the social relationships and ties of trust on which their commercial activities depend. By exploring the interrelationship between civility and diplomacy, the article seeks to move anthropological debate beyond the question of whether civility is either a form of artifice premised on performance or a deeper ethical virtue in and of itself. It suggests, rather, the extent to which ambiguity, ambivalence, contradiction, and imperfection are an inbuilt aspect of the ways in which respect is communicated and evaluated, and ties of trust fashioned and maintained. Keywords: civility, diplomacy, trade, trading networks, Afghanistan, commerce, trust, dissimulation

Funding

Trust, Global Traders and Cheap Commodities in a Chinese International City (TRODITIES); G1723; EUROPEAN UNION; 669132

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Accepted version

Journal

Anthropological Theory

ISSN

1463-4996

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Issue

2-3

Volume

18

Page range

175-197

Department affiliated with

  • Anthropology Publications

Research groups affiliated with

  • Sussex Asia Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2018-01-18

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2018-01-18

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2018-01-18

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