Rooted Cosmopolitanism

Canadians take pride in being good citizens of the world, yet our failure to meet global commitments raises questions. Do Canadians need to transcend national loyalties to become full global citizens? Is the idea of rooted cosmopolitanism simply a myth that encourages complacency about Canada's place in the world? This volume assesses rooted cosmopolitanism both in theory and practice. By exploring how Canadians are accommodating "the world" in areas such as multiculturalism, climate change, and humanitarian intervention, the contributors test the possibility of reconciling national allegiances with commitments to human rights, global justice, and international law.

Canadians take pride in being good citizens of the world, yet our failure to meet commitments on the global stage raises questions. Do Canadians need to transcend local attachments and national loyalties to become full global citizens? Is the very idea of rooted cosmopolitanism simply a myth that encourages complacency about Canada's place in the world? This volume brings together leading scholars to assess the concept of rooted cosmopolitanism, both in theory and practice. In Part 1, authors examine the nature, complexity, and relevance of the concept itself and show how local identities such as patriotism and Quebec nationalism can, but need not, conflict with cosmopolitan values and principles. In Part 2, they reveal how local ties and identities in practice enable and impede Canada's global responsibilities in areas such as multiculturalism, climate change, immigration and refugee policy, and humanitarian intervention. By examining how Canada has negotiated its relations to "the world" both within and beyond its own borders, Rooted Cosmopolitanism evaluates the possibility of reconciling local ties and nationalism with commitments to human rights, global justice, and international law.

This book explores the analytical and practical value of the notion of "rooted cosmopolitanism" for the field of cultural heritage. Many concepts of present-day heritage discourses - such as World Heritage, local heritage practices, or indigenous heritage - tend to elide the complex interplay between the local and the global - entanglements that are investigated as "glocalisation" in Globalisation Studies. However, no human group ever creates more than a part of its heritage by itself. This book explores an exciting new alternative in scholarly (critical) heritage discourse, the notion of rooted cosmopolitanism, a way of making manifestations of globalised phenomena comprehensible and relevant at local levels. It develops a critical perspective on heritage and heritage practices, bringing together a highly varied yet conceptually focused set of stimulating contributions by senior and emerging scholars working on the heritage of localities across the globe. A contextualising introduction is followed by three strongly theoretical and methodological chapters which complement the second part of the book, six concrete, empirical chapters written in "response" to the more theoretical chapters. Two final reflective conclusions bring together these different levels of analysis. This book will appeal primarily to archaeologists, anthropologists, heritage professionals, and museum curators who are ready to be confronted with innovative and exciting new approaches to the complexities of cultural heritage in a globalising world.

Anthropology and the New Cosmopolitanism inaugurates a new, situated, cosmopolitan anthropology. It examines the rise of postcolonial movements responsive to global rights movements, which espouse a politics of dignity, cultural difference, democracy, dissent and tolerance. The book starts from the premise that cosmopolitanism is not, and never has been, a 'western', elitist ideal exclusively. The book's major innovation is to show the way cosmopolitans beyond the North--in Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and Malaysia, India, Africa, the Middle East and Mexico--juggle universalist commitments with roots in local cultural milieus and particular communities.Anthropology and the New Cosmopolitanism breaks new ground in theorizing the role of social anthropology as a discipline that engages with the moral, economic, legal and political transformations and dislocations of a globalizing world. It introduces the reader to key debates surrounding cosmopolitanism in the social sciences, and is written clearly and accessibly for undergraduates in anthropology and related subjects.

A stunningly original look at the forgotten Jewish political roots of contemporary international human rights, told through the moving stories of five key activists The year 2018 marks the seventieth anniversary of two momentous events in twentieth-century history: the birth of the State of Israel and the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Both remain tied together in the ongoing debates about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, global antisemitism, and American foreign policy. Yet the surprising connections between Zionism and the origins of international human rights are completely unknown today. In this riveting account, James Loeffler explores this controversial history through the stories of five remarkable Jewish founders of international human rights, following them from the prewar shtetls of eastern Europe to the postwar United Nations, a journey that includes the Nuremberg and Eichmann trials, the founding of Amnesty International, and the UN resolution of 1975 labeling Zionism as racism. The result is a book that challenges long-held assumptions about the history of human rights and offers a startlingly new perspective on the roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The core idea shared by all cosmopolitan views is that all human beings belong to a single community and the ultimate units of moral concern are individual human beings, not states or particular forms of human associations. Nevertheless, the attempts to ground a political theory on overarching universal principles is in contradiction with the plurality of social, cultural, political, religious interpretative standpoints in the contemporary world. Is dissent cosmopolitan? Is there a legacy of dissent for a theory of cosmopolitanism? This book is a comparative, historical analysis of dissident thought and practice for contemporary debates on cosmopolitanism. Divided into two parts, the editors and contributors explore the contribution of ‘paradigmatic’ dissidents like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Havel, Sakharov, Mandela, Liu Xiaobo, Aung San Suu Kyi towards a post-universalist cosmopolitan theory. Part Two examines the inherent cosmopolitanism of the seemingly ‘peripheral’ dissent of contemporary forms of protests, resistance, direct action like NO TAV movement and Occupy Wall Street. A timely book which allows for a much needed new engagement in contemporary debates of cosmopolitanism, we learn how practical resistance to totalizing/hegemonic claims is generated, and how dissident thinking might contribute to new, enriched ways of conceiving the non-totalizing foundations of cosmopolitanism. An innovative look at what lessons can scholars of cosmopolitanism learn from dissent/dissident movements, and what the role of dissent in cosmopolitan democracy could be.

An original and compelling vision of a just society“A ‘new view’ of the theoretical foundations of liberalism that will ‘challenge us to clarify our own implicit notions of liberal democracy.’ ”—The New York Times Book ReviewWinner of a Certificate of Merit for the American Bar Association's 1981 Gavel Award for outstanding public serviceFirst published in 1980 and continuously in print ever since, Bruce Ackerman's classic Social Justice in the Liberal State offers a new foundation for liberal political theory— a world in which each of us may live his or her own life in his or her own way, without denying the same right to others. Full of provocative discussions of issues ranging from education to abortion, it makes fascinating reading for anyone concerned with the future of the liberal democratic state. “Professor Ackerman has tackled age-old problems of social justice with the refreshing technique of a series of dialogues in which the proponent of a position must either confront his opponent with an answer, constrained by the three principles of rationality, consistency, and neutrality, or submit to a checkmate. The author’s ability to combine earthiness with extreme subtlety in framing the dialogues has produced a novel, mind-stretching book.”—Henry J. Friendly, Senior Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit“What limits should we place on genetic manipulation? How many children should we have? How should we regulate abortions and adoptions? What rights does the community have, what rights do parents have in the education of children? What rights do children have? What resources must we leave to future generations? To see all these as questions of distributive justice is to connect them in a new way (and to make) a significant contribution.”—Michael Walzer, The New Republic “The breadth of the attack on the fundamental issues of man and society is impressive.”—Foreign Affairs

Thanks to advances in international communication and travel, it has never been easier to connect with the rest of the world. As philosophers debate the consequences of globalization, cosmopolitanism promises to create a stronger global community. Cosmopolitanism in the Age of Globalization examines this philosophy from numerous perspectives to offer a comprehensive evaluation of its theory and practice. Bringing together the works of political scientists, philosophers, historians, and economists, the work applies an interdisciplinary approach to the study of cosmopolitanism that illuminates its long and varied history. This diverse framework provides a thoughtful analysis of the claims of cosmopolitanism and introduces many overlooked theorists and ideas. This volume is a timely addition to sociopolitical theory, exploring the philosophical consequences of cosmopolitanism in today's global interactions.