Meditations on ‘international friendship’: Situating twinning in global struggles for solidarity, recognition, and restitution

Abstract This article takes the practice of twinning as an entry point for problematising conventional accounts of ‘international friendship’ in the field of International Relations. In particular, the paper zeroes in on three examples of twinning practice, past and present, that have challenged the status quo: twinnings established in opposition to the Contra war in Nicaragua; twinning as an act of recognition for communities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories; and twinning as a vehicle for the recovery and return of sacred artefacts to post-colonial Kenya. Through these examples, it argues for an alternative conceptualisation of international friendship – one that pushes beyond the methodological nationalism and ontological rigidity of dominant approaches.