Summit atmospheres: Aviation diplomacy and virtual infrastructures of politics

Abstract

This paper examines the role of affective atmospheres in “doing” politics in diplomacy. By offering a thick exegesis of the ways in which these moods practically unfold at two International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) aviation summits, the paper shows how affective atmospheres have a potent steering effect on (geo)politics, constituting the virtual infrastructures of its conduct. While geographers have recently begun paying attention to the salience of affective atmospheres in diplomacy, current approaches still tend to treat them – if at all – as situational productions at specific sites. Engaging in ethnographic immersions in two ICAO summits, the paper offers an intimate reading of international-relations-in-action, across multivalent atmospheric experiences and transects. In particular, it highlights two modes of atmospheric conditioning in aviation diplomacy: one, the intermingling of work and play across time and, two, the overlap of various affective captures across space. The paper advocates a fuller appreciation of the contingency and adaptive nature of (geo)politics in its atmospheric productions. It also highlights the influence that these virtual infrastructures can have on decision-making in diplomacy.