Holding contradictions: toward the lawful carriage of Indigenous diplomacy

Abstract

ABSTRACT This reflective engagement with responses to the inaugural (2023) Coral Bell School Lecture on Indigenous Diplomacy considers and suggests a way of addressing conceptual and practical chasms associated with advancing Indigenous diplomacy in the context of contemporary foreign policy. First, we argue that differences among lifeworlds as well as deleterious challenges arising from settler colonialism need to be registered, embraced, and inhabited rather than glossed over. Second, we revisit the meaning and relationship between our terms ‘survivalism’ and ‘relationalism’, for increased clarity and understanding. Third, we consider challenges associated with the contingency and historical specificity of the ontological forms that are typically assumed in mainstream International Relations (IR) knowing. We conclude by drawing together the sketch of ‘principled pragmatism’ that we have explicated throughout as an orientation and way of responding to the challenge and difficulties of advancing Indigenous diplomacy in contemporary foreign policy. Our concluding comments register the necessity of pursuing principled pragmatism and Indigenous diplomacy in ‘lawful’ Aboriginal terms in the Oceania regional context.