Abstract Who decides when international relations constitute diplomacy? The study of diplomacy typically draws on contributions by European and American scholars and practitioners in building an understanding of what diplomatic practice is and who conducts it. The result being that the diversity and variation in diplomatic practices from other regions are frequently omitted or marginalized in the discourse. Little consideration is given to diplomacy as an exclusionary practice, where actors on the periphery of the international system may not only be norm “takers” at best, but excluded from diplomatic engagement at worst. This article critically considers developments in African diplomatic agency, addressing its marginalization prior to, and during European colonization. The article demonstrates that Africa actively developed and engaged in diplomacy, with the emergence of African customary law and diplomatic practices, which underpinned a functioning diplomatic system with neighboring and foreign territories prior to European colonization. Yet the colonization of Africa, and the introduction of a European approach to diplomacy as an institution saw African diplomacy increasingly veiled. This article showcases African contributions to diplomacy through pre-colonial practices as well as addressing a shortfall in analysis considering African diplomacy during the period of colonization. This includes consideration of diplomatic efforts by liberation movements from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Ghana as they sought to engage Britain. We argue, that despite the colonial metropole’s efforts to marginalize the international activities of liberation movements, Africa’s diplomatic agency continued through their international bilateral and multilateral networks.
Masters et al. (Fri,) studied this question.