diff --git a/ipfshttpclient/multipart.py b/ipfshttpclient/multipart.py
index 09ff5985..3aa78721 100644
--- a/ipfshttpclient/multipart.py
+++ b/ipfshttpclient/multipart.py
@@ -621,9 +621,10 @@ def auto_close_iter_fd(fd, iter):
 			finally:
 				os.close(fd)
 
-		dirname = os.path.basename(os.path.normpath(directory))
+		directory_str = utils.convert_path(directory)
+		dirname = os.path.basename(os.path.normpath(directory_str))
 
-		fd = os.open(directory, os.O_CLOEXEC | os.O_DIRECTORY)
+		fd = os.open(directory_str, os.O_CLOEXEC | os.O_DIRECTORY)
 		body, headers = stream_directory_impl(fd, dirname)
 		return auto_close_iter_fd(fd, body), headers
 	else:
@@ -654,7 +655,7 @@ def stream_filesystem_node(filepaths,
 	"""
 	is_dir = False
 	if isinstance(filepaths, utils.path_types):
-		is_dir = os.path.isdir(filepaths)
+		is_dir = os.path.isdir(utils.convert_path(filepaths))
 	elif isinstance(filepaths, int):
 		import stat
 		is_dir = stat.S_ISDIR(os.fstat(filepaths).st_mode)
diff --git a/ipfshttpclient/utils.py b/ipfshttpclient/utils.py
index b3a14313..a901d1e5 100644
--- a/ipfshttpclient/utils.py
+++ b/ipfshttpclient/utils.py
@@ -18,7 +18,31 @@ class collections:
 
 path_types = (six.text_type, six.binary_type)
 if hasattr(os, "PathLike"):  #PY36+
-    path_types += (os.PathLike,)
+	path_types += (os.PathLike,)
+
+	def convert_path(path):
+		# Not needed since all system APIs also accept an `os.PathLike`
+		return path
+else:
+	_pathlib_types = ()
+	try:  #PY2: doesn't have `pathlib`
+		import pathlib
+		_pathlib_types += (pathlib.PurePath,)
+	except ImportError:
+		pass
+	# Independently maintained forward-port of `pathlib` for Py27 and others
+	try:
+		import pathlib2
+		_pathlib_types += (pathlib2.PurePath,)
+	except ImportError:
+		pass
+	path_types += _pathlib_types
+	
+	def convert_path(path):
+		# `pathlib`'s PathLike objects need to be treated specially and
+		# converted to strings when interacting with system APIs
+		return str(path) if isinstance(path, _pathlib_types) else path
+    
 
 
 def guess_mimetype(filename):
@@ -59,7 +83,7 @@ def clean_file(file):
     if isinstance(file, int):
         return os.fdopen(file, 'rb', closefd=False), True
     elif not hasattr(file, 'read'):
-        return open(file, 'rb'), True
+        return open(convert_path(file), 'rb'), True
     else:
         return file, False
 
diff --git a/test/functional/test_files.py b/test/functional/test_files.py
index 1dfaf530..5c64faba 100644
--- a/test/functional/test_files.py
+++ b/test/functional/test_files.py
@@ -240,7 +240,7 @@ def test_mfs_file_write_stat_read_delete(client):
 		assert sorted(desc["Stat"].items()) == sorted(stat.items())
 
 		# Read back (and compare file contents)
-		with open(desc["Name"], "rb") as file:
+		with open(str(desc["Name"]), "rb") as file:
 			content = client.files.read(filepath)
 			assert content == file.read()
 
diff --git a/test/run-tests.py b/test/run-tests.py
index 117d262e..6e3c7d58 100755
--- a/test/run-tests.py
+++ b/test/run-tests.py
@@ -77,8 +77,10 @@ def _contextlib_suppress(*exceptions):
 
 #PY2: Only add `encoding` parameter on Python 3 as it's not available on Unicode-hostile versions
 extra_args = {}
-if not six.PY2:
+if sys.version_info >= (3, 6, 0):
 	extra_args["encoding"] = locale.getpreferredencoding()
+elif not six.PY2:
+	extra_args["universal_newlines"] = True
 
 # Spawn IPFS daemon in data directory
 DAEMON = subprocess.Popen(["ipfs", "daemon", "--enable-pubsub-experiment"],