<p>I'm considering using AMQP (using qpid) to enable a mixture of Python and Java services communicate with each other. Basic text messaging seems simple enough but, as with every other messaging technology I've investigated, that's where it seems to stop. Except for building instant messaging applications, I would have thought sending strings wasn't a particularly useful thing to do yet example after example demonstrates sending unformatted text around.</p>

<p>My instinct then is to use XML (de-)serialization or something similar (JSON, YAML, Protocol Buffers etc.) which has good library support in both languages. Is this a best practice and, if so, which (de-)serialization protocol would people recommend? Or am I missing the point somewhere and should be quite content sending small bits of text?</p>

XML or JSON are probably the easiest. Protocol buffers is cool but I'd treat it as an optimisation to think of later on if you really need to (as its a bit harder to use being essentially a binary wire format).
BTW you might want to look at Stomp rather than AMQP; its got way more client libraries and supported message brokers. e.g.
Apache ActiveMQ
which is way more popular than qpid or rabbitmq - or indeed any
JMS provider
would work just fine.