[Linganth] ELAN- workshop Invitation, November 04, 2021. Andrew Graan: Diplomatic Commentary and the Sovereignty Trap - Rethinking Political Reform Macedonia

[Jing]

Dear colleagues,

This coming Thursday (November 04) EASA Linguistic Anthropology Network
(ELAN) will host this month's works-in-progress workshop. It is my great
pleasure to invite you to attend this workshop. On Thursday we will be
discussing a paper by Dr. Andrew Graan from the University of Helsinki. Dr.
Stefan Groth (Centre for Global Cooperation Research at University
Duisburg-Essen) will act as discussant for the paper.

Here is the abstract of this paper:

*Diplomatic Commentary and the Sovereignty Trap: Rethinking Political
Reform Macedonia* (by Andrew Graan)

*Abstract:* A tension exists within contemporary practices of American and
European diplomacy, which formally acknowledge a Westphalian logic of state
sovereignty but nonetheless violate this logic on a causal basis. This
paper analyzes one example of this phenomenon. In Macedonia (now North
Macedonia), American and European diplomats have long held a prominent role
in the country’s politics. On the one hand, these diplomats routinely
signal the sovereign responsibility of the Macedonian state over political
decision- making. At the same time, through media interviews and press
conferences, these diplomats also publicly broadcast their policy
preferences for Macedonia and thereby intervene in political
decision-making. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork, this paper
examines the public speech of US and EU diplomats in Macedonia/North
Macedonia and analyzes the rhetorical strategies by which they
simultaneously assert and compromise the country’s sovereign right over
political decision-making. As the paper argues, this dynamic fueled
perpetual anxiety about the character and quality of Macedonia’s
sovereignty. Both Macedonian political leaders and US and EU diplomats thus
engaged in recurrent assertions and evaluations of Macedonian sovereignty.
However, rather than defusing public anxieties about Macedonia’s
sovereignty, these political performances only renewed and intensified
them. In this context, the question of sovereignty functioned as a trap,
that is, as an ever anxious space of sovereign performances that could not
possibly satisfy the contradictory expectations placed upon them.

Please do not circulate the paper outside the workshop.

*Date:* Thursday, *04 November* 2021
*Time:* 12.15-13.45 *Dublin time (GMT)*

Link to Zoom Meeting:
https://helsinki.zoom.us/j/64808619250?pwd=MkNZY0Z5cFg3TnJiL2dHZExrL2dBZz09

Meeting ID: 648 0861 9250
Passcode: 715185

You should find the paper attached to this email. If your email server has
not allowed the paper attachment through, please email me through
sunnyleaf1984 at gmail.com for a copy. You are also most welcome to
visit/participate in our network (https://www.easaonline.org/networks/elan/)
and our workshop serials (
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1t-UeFI6bFoGbdVPuvze92KIWafwT-02aBdyD-zH-RvU/edit
)

Welcome!

Best wishes,
Lijing
-- 
Dr. phil. Lijing Peng

Trinity Centre for Literary and Cultural Translation
Dublin 2, Ireland
+353 877963633
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/linganth/attachments/20211101/f5ed4d13/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Graan.SovereigntyTrap_ELANDraft.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 385434 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/linganth/attachments/20211101/f5ed4d13/attachment.pdf>