This communication brings together methodological reflections on international event ethnography, and analyses of ‘global ocean’ environmental diplomacy, based on a collective observation experience of the Third United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice, France (UNOC3, June, 2026). As marine social science scholars, we sought access to this diplomatic sequence and shared ethnographic insights to explore the hybrid and largely performative forms of diplomacy characterizing this ‘high-level political event’ (Odipe, 2025). Unlike Conferences of the Parties or other conventional venues of environmental multilateralism, the UNOC does not focus on negotiating legally binding texts, but provides a declarative stage for diverse actors, including governments, private sector and civil society representatives. To make sense of this ‘diplomacy,’ we individually followed and shared observations on specific topics across multiple sites: the accredited ‘blue zone’, the ‘public’ green zone, and a range of ‘off-site’ events hosted in universities and museums. Here, we do not focus on what we did access, but on a methodological outcome linked to non-access and its implications. Despite extensive circulation across sites and events, key diplomatic practices occurred behind closed doors – at private receptions, informal gatherings, on boats, based on largely invisible agendas. Building on this observation, we discuss the limits of understanding ‘ocean diplomacy’ through its official ‘stagings’ alone. Beyond UNOC’s maps, calendars and projections, we argue that the processual and asymmetrical dimensions of ‘One Ocean’ diplomacy might be better grasped by following specific actors across events and diplomatic sequences, rather than being guided by the conference’s formal architecture.
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