Cosmopolitanism In Hard Times

While each chapter seizes the dialectic of enlightenment and counter-enlightenment at work in the global world, the volume insists on the moral, intellectual, structural, and historical resources that still make cosmopolitanism a real possibility even in these hard times.

This open access book draws a theoretically productive triangle between urban studies, theories of cosmopolitanism, and migration studies in a global context. It provides a unique, encompassing and situated view on the various relations between cosmopolitanism and urbanity in the contemporary world. Drawing on a variety of cities in Latin America, Europe, Asia, Africa and North America, it overcomes the Eurocentric bias that has marked debate on cosmopolitanism from its inception. The contributions highlight the crucial role of migrants as actors of urban change and targets of urban policies, thus reconciling empirical and normative approaches to cosmopolitanism. By addressing issues such as cosmopolitanism and urban geographies of power, locations and temporalities of subaltern cosmopolites, political meanings and effects of cosmopolitan practices and discourses in urban contexts, it revisits contemporary debates on superdiversity, urban stratification and local incorporation, and assess the role of migration and mobility in globalization and social change.

Inspired by comparative law scholar Patrick Glenn's work, an international group of legal scholars explores the state of the discipline.

The first book in English dedicated to the actress and director Tanaka Kinuyo

Today, more than at any other point in history, we are aware of the cultural impact of global processes. This has created new possibilities for the development of a cosmopolitan culture but, at the same time, it has created new risks and anxieties linked to immigration and the accommodation of strangers. This book examines how the images of the terrorist and the refugee, by being dispersed across almost all aspects of social life, have resulted in the production of ‘ambient fears’, and it explores the role of artists in reclaiming the conditions of hospitality. Since 9/11 contemporary artists have confronted the issues of globalization by creating situations in which strangers can enter into dialogue with each other, collaborating with diverse networks to forms new platforms for global knowledge. Such knowledge does not depend upon the old model of establishing a supposedly objective and therefore universal framework, but on the capacity to recognize, and mutually negotiate, situated differences. From artworks that incorporate new media techniques to collective activism Papastergiadis claims that there is a new cosmopolitan imaginary that challenges the conventional divide between art and politics. Through the analysis of artistic practices across the globe this book extends the debates on culture and cosmopolitanism from the ethics of living with strangers to the aesthetics of imagining alternative visions of the world. Timely and wide-ranging, this book will be essential reading for students and scholars in sociology and cultural studies and will be of interest to anyone concerned with the changing forms of art and culture in our contemporary global age.

This book explores disrupted youth cohesion in France within the context of multiple ongoing global economic, migratory, social, political, and security-related crises. While these trends can be observed in numerous Western societies, France provides a unique case study of various anti-cosmopolitan and anti-Enlightenment movements shaping youth conditions and reconfiguring relationships between the individual, the group, and society. The authors undertook in-depth interviews with French young people between the ages of 18 to 30 years old to inquire into how they experience "vivre ensemble" (living together) in a time of rising economic inequalities and multicultural tensions. Through these findings, they invite decision-makers, politicians, educators, and parents to propose a renewed narrative of social cohesion for youth who are not disillusioned, but deeply on edge.

Enlightenment Cosmopolitanism brings together ten innovative contributions by outstanding scholars working across a wide array of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. Interdisciplinary in its methodology and compass, with a strong comparative European dimension, the volume examines discourses ranging from literature, historiography, music and opera to anthropology and political philosophy. It makes an original contribution to the study of 18th-century ideas of universal peace, progress and wealth as the foundation of future debates on cosmopolitanism. At the same time, it analyses examples of counter-reaction to these ideas and discusses the relevance of the Enlightenment for subsequent polemics on cosmopolitanism, including 21st-century debates in sociology, politics and legal theory.

What makes people cosmopolitan? How is cosmopolitanism shaping everyday life experiences and the practices of ordinary people? Making use of empirical research, Cosmopolitanism in Practice examines the concrete settings in which individuals display cosmopolitan sensibilities and dispositions, illustrating the ways in which cosmopolitan self-transformations can be used as an analytical tool to explain a variety of identity outlooks and practices. The manner in which both past and present cosmopolitanisms compete with meta-narratives such as nationalism, multiculturalism and religion is also investigated, alongside the employment of cosmopolitan ideas in situations of tension and conflict. With an international team of contributors, including Ulrich Beck, Steven Vertovec, Rob Kroes and Natan Sznaider, this book draws on a variety of intellectual disciplines and international contexts to show how people embrace and make use of cosmopolitan ideas and attitudes.