Cosmopolitanism: Cosmopolitan Cities and the Dialectics of Living Together with Difference (original) (raw)
Related papers
The ambivalence of ordinary cosmopolitanism: Investigating the limits of cosmopolitan openness
The sociological review, 2007
Despite diverse understandings of cosmopolitanism, most authors agree that cosmopolitans espouse a broadly defined disposition of 'openness' toward others, people, things and experiences whose origin is non-local. It is argued that such an attitude is expressed by an emotional and ethical commitment towards universalism, selflessness, worldliness and communitarianism, and that such values should be identifiable in the practices, attitudes and identifications of individuals. By using data generated through qualitative focus group research, this paper extends the development of Lamont and Aksartova's (2002) category of 'ordinary cosmopolitanism'. The participants in this study saw themselves as beneficiaries of an increasingly interconnected world, and they generally expressed cosmopolitan sentiments by referring to easily accepted opportunities associated with globalisation (eg. travel, cuisine, music) rather than the more difficult aspects of openness such as showing hospitality to strangers, or accepting human interest ahead of perceived national interests. Their positive views were counterbalanced, however, by sentiments of 'dilution of national culture' and 'culture loss'. We argue that cosmopolitanism is a set of structurally grounded, discursive resources available to social actors which is variably deployed to deal with issues like cultural diversity, the global, and otherness. Ironically these discourses, which are the basis of the everyday accounts we describe, mirror academic debates on globalisation, suggesting the immersion of theorists in these discursive webs of meaning that structure responses to things global.
Cosmopolitanism in exclusionary contexts
Population Space and Place, 2020
Although over time mass migration has brought about de facto cosmopolitan situations in Gulf cities, foreign residents continue to experience segregation and endure exclusionary policies and practices on a daily basis. This article unpacks two sets of internal tensions that characterise cosmopolitanism in the Gulf, through a comparison of cosmopolitan discourses and practices in Abu Dhabi, Riyadh and Jeddah. The first tension relates to official discourses and policies: Saudi and Emirati governments design and enforce exclusionary policies and, at the same time, publicly endorse cosmopolitan ideals and projects—consisting in Islamic universalism for Saudi cities and the rhetoric of tolerance for the United Arab Emirates. Such cosmopolitan claims are, moreover, reflected in the aspirations and subjectivities of migrants and local citizens while also generating feelings of alienation. We call this discursive paradox cosmopolitanism in denial. The second tension concerns migrants' everyday practices and modes of consumption in urban spaces. We argue that these are best understood as a form of segregated cosmopolitanism, whereby both Gulf citizens and the various migrant communities explicitly acknowledge, and at times consume, urban diversity but also maintain certain boundaries. Drawing on an analysis of both governmental and individual discourses, as well as on ethnographic observations collected over a decade of fieldwork in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, our research engages with theories of cosmopolitanism from a situated perspective. As such, it moves away from the dominant unitary and normative approach to cosmopolitanism and instead emphasises both the resilience and transience of everyday cosmopolitan situations.
"The cosmopolitan has re-emerged as a popular figure within the social sciences, primarily as a means of addressing (the potential for) new forms of experience and sociability in an increasingly mobile and interconnected world. Investigations into practical or everyday cosmopolitanism have been useful in grounding some of the more theoretical of these debates but problems remain in terms of both defining and operationalising the concept. The first section of the paper briefly addresses some key theoretical debates. In the second, attention is focused on methodological issues, with regard to both data collection and interpretation. In particular, I suggest a move beyond the labelling of certain activities and people as cosmopolitan and, instead, emphasise the contradictory and rhetorical aspects of these engagements, drawing on empirical data. In this way, the temporal, conditional and often fragile aspects of such ‘cosmopolitan’ practices can be foregrounded."
'Engaged Cosmopolitanism: Reconciling Local Grounding and Distance' (2014)
Arena Journal, 2014
Cosmopolitanism is a philosophy of our modern/postmodern times. Since the late-twentieth century, it has spread far beyond those few Greek Stoics, eighteenth-century Enlightenment philosophes and nineteenth-century intellectuals who gave the ethos a long living lineage without naming it as such. At the same time, but intensifying over the past two or three decades, the global imaginary from which cosmopolitanism derives its ideological power has become increasingly compelling. Most activists and philosophers, including the many radical alter-globalization figures who now argue for localism, are culturally compelled to acknowledge that the local is related to the global. Against this generalization, it is true that even positive global exchange between people concerned about fairness and justice, still has its nationalist, realist and provincial critics. However, for most part, cosmopolitanism has become the ideology of choice in a globalizing world. The problem for this kind of politics is that cosmopolitanism and grounded localism are usually brought together without explicitly working through their associated tensions. This essay attempts to do so. The essay sets up an argument for having it both ways—a cosmopolitanism that is both grounded in the local and reaches across the global. This essay elaborates a form of engaged cosmopolitanism that seeks to recognize and work with the tensions between the global, national, regional and the local; between the universal, general and particular; and between the ethical and institutionalized. These tensions remain real and important. In the present argument, it is suggested that a positive reflexive politics needs to take different orientations of these tensions seriously. The other task of the essay is to seek a more grounded basis for valuing cosmopolitanism as an ethic. Cosmopolitanism can be defined as a global-local politics that, firstly, projects a sociality of common political engagement among all human beings across the globe, and, secondly, suggests that this sociality should be ethically and/or organizationally privileged in relation to other forms of sociality. The key phrase for contestation here is ‘privileged in relation to’. Usually the phrase would be ‘privileged over’. In the ‘privileged over’ rendition, the global dimension of cosmopolitanism would be seen as primary. This, I suggest, is not helpful. Cosmopolitanism is not good in itself. However, even in the ‘privileged in relation to’ version, questions remain about what this means. Engaged cosmopolitanism is a particular form of cosmopolitanism that treats deliberative negotiation across levels of engagement as a way of handling these questions.
Negative Cosmopolitanisms
Today, cosmopolitanism has become much more than an idea. It has become the meaningful political horizon for how subjectivity is enacted. I will have to return more fully to this formulation in a moment because the cosmopolitanisms presented in this volume are not, at first blush at least, the happy universalism celebrated by advocates of world citizenship and global democratic governance. The negative cosmopolitanisms of this book have little resemblance to the form envisioned by the Enlightenment tradition. The halcyon days of a cosmopolitanism focused on building universal institutions in order to enable world citizenship have run their course. In their place has emerged a more agonistic and conflictual conception of cosmopolitics.
Syllabus: Cosmopolitanism, Tolerance, and Coexistence, F 2017
What does it mean to call individuals, cities, or societies " cosmopolitan? " The term cosmopolitan has both positive (citizen of the word; combining parts of the world within it) and negative connotations (unaffiliated or disloyal). In our reflection on both the cosmopolitan subject and cosmopolitan spaces, we will also consider how people navigate difference by interrogating the terms " tolerance " and " coexistence. " We will consider power differentials and power relations inherent in all three terms. To address these questions, we will begin by reading and discussing Kant's writings on hospitality, and then consider writings of contemporary theorists such as Martha Nussbaum, Bruce Robbins, David Harvey, Wendy Brown and others. To further our understanding of the implications of these terms, we will examine representations of modern " cosmopolitan " Alexandria. The Egyptian port city, has a long history of rich cultural interaction, immortalized in literature and film. We will read works by: E. M. Forster, Constantin Cavafy, Lawrence Durrell, Edwar al-Kharrat, Yitzhak Gormezano Goren and Randa Jarrar. We will also discuss Youssef Chahine's semi-autobiographical Alexandria film, Alexandria Again and Forever.
The Sociological Review, 2002
This paper is concerned with whether a culture of cosmopolitanism is currently emerging out of massively wide-ranging global processes. The authors develop certain theoretical components of such a culture they consider ongoing research concerned with belongingness to different geographical entities including the world as a whole, and they present their own empirical research findings. From their media research they show that there is something that could be called a banal globalism. From focus group research they show that there is a wide awareness of the global but they this is combined in complex ways with notions of the local and grounded and from media interviews they demonstrate that there is a reflexive awareness of a cultures of the cosmopolitan. On the basis of their data from the UK, they conclude that a publicly screened cosmopolitan culture is emergent and likely to orehestrate much of social and political life in future decades.