The Smell of Internationality. Towards a Sensual Approach to International Relations

The tenet of this article is the conceptualisation of social multiplicity, rather than politics, being the deepest code of internationality as a property of human existence. As a consequence of that understanding of internationality, International Relations (IR) extends beyond dealing with the traditional concepts of politics and economy. All the manifestations of human activity arise in a context of social multiplicity, in which individuals are aware of paths of development separate from their own, and in which ideas, technologies and resources are constantly taken from one social environment and combined with others, in order to produce new and original results. From this perspective, IR concerns nearly everything: multiplicity and identity; multiplicity and sexuality; the interactive life of languages; structures of world literature; the unequal yet connected development of music; international relations of food and cooking; social strategies of dealing with difference, and internationality experienced through the senses. This article illustrates how olfaction is present in international relations through power relations, olfactory others, the issues of migration and asylum, olfactory travelogy and alternative cultures of smell. The analysis confirms that sensual internationality may show a new aspect in understanding relations between politically organised societies. Sensuality – sensory experience – may be a foundation for a hitherto neglected way of understanding internationality. Sensual IR enables the discipline to return to the everyday life of internationality. It helps us to experience internationality and to dispose of the dominant belief in IR that internationality cannot be seen, or that we do not know where its “inter” is located or what it is.