Mesoamerican diplomacy: theoretical and conceptual approaches for its study in International Relations

Abstract

International action is a direct reflection of the dynamism of human interactions. As part of these, the exchange of products,whether as an economic or sociocultural activity, has been the main axis of international relations since the emergence of the first human societies –often in response to the scarcity of raw materials or the desire for certain conspicuous products– that led to their search in other territories and forced the deployment of strategies that, from the academy, we must recognize as diplomatic.
This article –through an interdisciplinary research that incorporates scientific texts from diplomatic theory, epistemology belonging to the Fourth Great debate of International Relations, Historical Sociology, Archaeology and International Law– aims to recover the study of diplomacy as an activity that is as old as the human species and that must be studied in greater historical depth, not only to expand our knowledge about its various manifestations throughout world geography and thus better understand the local history of States and non-European autonomous political units, but also to demonstrate the agency that these ancient societies of the periphery had in their praxis. This article will focus on a region of what is now known as the Global South: Mesoamerica (Pre-Hispanic México), establishing the existence of a very specific type of diplomacy and presenting theoretical and conceptual approaches that result in the production of an interdisciplinary study that accounts for both its universal and particular aspects and how significant they were for the establishment of alliances that contributed to the happening of a transcendental historical moment for InternationalRelations: the Conquest.