Projections internationales ou détours vers le local? Les diplomaties identitaires des sikhs (Inde) et des Mohajirs (Pakistan)

Ethnic diplomacy can be characterised as a ‘popular mode of diplomatic action’. As such, it is an illustration of the privatisation of diplomacy, which may involve private actions sponsored by state actors or, on the contrary, private actions with a public outcome in the realm of foreign policy. By attempting to reach out to state actors, international organisations and global NGOs, ethnic diplomats articulate a cultural mode of transnational mobilisation. But these two dimensions of ethnic diplomacy, its ‘culturality’ and its ‘transnationality’, cannot be taken for granted and should be questioned thoroughly. Through this analysis, it appears that long-distance nationalists do not always succeed in transnationalising their activities and that they often end up re-locating themselves in exile. And more than ethnicity or cultural repertoires, it is the political culture of ethnodiplomatic organisations and their relations with the diasporic environments in which they evolve which helps to explain the outcome of these popular modes of diplomatic action.