Diplomatie du vivant
At Baptiste Morizot’s, the art of negotiating shared uses of the same territory between humans and other living beings—without dominating or submitting. The diplomat of interdependencies represents no side—neither the wolf nor the shepherd—but works for the relationship that binds them. He does not impose a just solution: he seeks a *modus vivendi*, constantly renegotiated, at the level of the living.
La diplomatie avec le vivant en soi et hors de soi est un type de relation qui devient pertinent lorsqu’on cohabite ensemble, sur un même territoire, avec des êtres qui résistent et insistent.
Diplomacy begins where domination fails. With beings that “resist and persist”—a wolf on an alpine pasture, a passion in itself, the bees of a territory—you can neither destroy them without harming yourself, nor ignore them. You must negotiate. Morizot draws the term from his experience tracking wolves and coexisting with flocks: the diplomat of interdependencies arrives with their loyalties, and leaves “almost a diplomat,” torn between the shepherd, the sheep, the wolf, the grass itself.
This way of thinking overturns the figure of the judge. The diplomat is not a sage who knows better than others where their interests lie, nor a spokesperson who would represent the wolf like a politician their voter. Their stance is “positional-relational”: they stand between, bound not to one side but to the lasting relationship between sides. Their compass is even a “slight moral smudge” toward each party—a sign they work for none at the expense of another. The right agreement isn’t discovered: it’s invented, renegotiated—these are the adjusted considerations.
The diplomacy of the living isn’t naive anthropomorphism: there’s no need to ascribe speech to soil collembolans to engage with them—only the real interdependence matters. Nor is it technocratic “species” management: the appointed expert optimizes a stock, while the diplomat holds together lives that refuse domestication.