Assembling a Geography of Diplomatic Sociability: The Case of Finland's Sauna Diplomacy.

Sauna bathing, the traditional form of Finnish sweat bathing, has been an inseparable part of Finnish culture and everyday life for thousands of years. Sauna culture has also played such a central role in Finnish diplomacy that the term sauna diplomacy has been coined to describe this intimate relationship. There has been little academic research on sauna diplomacy to date, however. Considering this research gap, this study presents the author's personal experience in the Finnish Foreign Service, as well as interviews with Finnish diplomats and guests of the Finnish embassy sauna in Ankara, Turkey, as illustrations of Finnish sauna diplomacy as a site and form of diplomatic sociability. Through the lens of assemblage theory, it is argued that affective atmospheres of sauna diplomacy are engineered through the coconstitution of human and nonhuman elements, that this process of assembling creates spaces of intimate social interaction that may be manipulated for diplomatic ends, and that there are disconnections and limitations that should be addressed to create more inclusive diplomatic (sauna) spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]