Cosmopolitanism

Rousseau's Social Contract and a Theory for Global Citizenship

by Oscar de la Parra

'Mobilising Lidice: Cosmopolitan Memory between Theory and Practice'

by Jessica Rapson

Culture, Theory and Critique

This paper interrogates the orthodoxies of cosmopolitanism via the example of an emerging commemorative network... more This paper interrogates the orthodoxies of cosmopolitanism via the example of an emerging commemorative network surrounding the Czech village of Lidice, drawing attention to a disjunction between idealised theories of memory and actual, instrumental memory practice. Razed by Nazi officials as an act of retaliation for the assassination of Reinhardt Heydrich in Prague, 1942, Lidice's male inhabitants – mainly miners and factory workers – were shot, and women and children deported. In a notable example of productive transnational identification, a group of coal miners in Stoke-on-Trent, England began a fundraising initiative which resulted in the construction of a new Lidice overlooking the former site (1947). Whilst the field-defining work of Daniel Levy and Natan Sznaider (2006) suggests that cosmopolitan memory-work avoids the homogenisation of Holocaust memories in the global sphere, I explore here the possibility that the complex motivations that guide such practices may undermine this premise.

Accordingly the paper explores inscriptions of Lidice into local contexts via processes of de-territorialisation and re-territorialisation, focusing on its mobilisation in the 21st century in an examination the twinning of Lidice with Khojaly, Azerbaijan (February 2010) and with Stoke-on-Trent (underway). Campaigners in Stoke aim to inaugurate a new museum restore the town's ‘emotional bond’ with Lidice (Alan Gerrard 2010), whereas in Khojaly Lidice's memory is polemically aligned with the massacre of over 600 Azerbaijanis during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between ethnic Armenians and the Republic of Azerbaijan (1988–1992). The chapter considers the Lidice's twinning network as an example of cosmopolitan, supranational ‘glocalisation’ (Levy and Sznaider 2006). Whilst both cases rely on a sense of global-local solidarity rendered possible by the mobilisation of Holocaust memory, the motivations that ground them are significantly divergent; this essay assesses to what extent this may interfere with the potential of the twinning initiatives discussed to avoid a global homogenisation of Holocaust memory.

Understanding the Language of Partnership: A Glossary

by Stefano Mercanti

For the new Italian edition of Riane Eisler's The Chalice and the Blade, edited by Professor Antonella Riem for the... more For the new Italian edition of Riane Eisler's The Chalice and the Blade, edited by Professor Antonella Riem for the Udine University Press, Forum, (2011), Dr. Stefano Mercanti compiled a useful glossary for the language of partnership.

Rawls's Duty of Assistance: Transitional Not Humanitarian or Sufficientarian

by Caleb Yong

Draft only; comments welcome.

Cosmpolitan Vision, Ulrich Beck

by Alexander Karolis

Book Reviews

Journal: Australian Journal of Political Science
Volume 43, Issue 3, September 2008, pages 569-582

CALL FOR PAPERS: Journal Special Issue: Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies

by Karen Soldatic

CALL FOR PAPERS:
Journal Special Issue: Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies
more CALL FOR PAPERS:
Journal Special Issue: Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies

Disability and Colonialism: (dis)encounters and anxious intersectionalities

Guest Editors: Shaun Grech (Manchester Metropolitan University) & Karen Soldatic (University of New South Wales)

We are pleased to announce that we will be guest editing a special edition entitled Disability and Colonialism: (dis)encounters and anxious intersectionalities on behalf of the established refereed journal Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies.

The aim of this special issue is to position disability within the colonial (the real and imagined), through which to explore a range of (often anxious) intersectionalities as disability is theorised, constructed, and lived as a post/neocolonial condition. While postcolonial theory and associated fields (e.g. critical theory, cultural studies etc.) have engaged with race, gender and ethnicity in the exploration of themes of identity, representation, space, historicity and the neocolonial, they have almost wholly bypassed disabled people- paradoxically limited to the subjectification of the able-bodied, or rather disembodying colonialism. Westerncentric fields of study such as disability studies often remain detached from the global South, the histories, contexts and cultures of these specific geopolitical spaces, and how disability is ontologically constructed and lived through a history replete with signifiers of power and empire and that frame the global. While some have adopted colonialism as a metaphor for the experience of disability (see for example Shakespeare, 2000), of colonized bodies by the medical profession, the colonial encounter per se, its creation of and implications for the disabled subject, remains inadequately theorised. In turn, disability is persistently removed from history and any contemplation of the post or neocolonial and efforts (discursive or material) at decolonizing these spaces and those within.

The special issue aims to transcend disciplinary, epistemological, methodological, spatial and historical boundaries. Engaging indigenous, post/neocolonial, disability studies, critical theory, psychology, Latin American Cultural Studies, and a range of other perspectives and literatures, and prioritising voices from the global South, we invite authors to engage in critical debate around colonialism to explore a range of thematic concerns (not exclusively):

• Colonial representations and the construction of the disabled body and mind
• The violence and disablism of colonialism
• Intersections of race, ethnicity, culture, gender and disability
• Empire and the domestication of bodies: globalisation, economics and beyond
• Disabled identities, metaphors and language, and their roles in subjugation
• From the colonial to the post/neocolonial: disability and contemporary lineages of imperialism
• Social identities and visions of disability
• Colonial medicalisation: identifying, labelling and ‘treating’ the disabled body
• The Christianising mission, biblical renditions and the disabled subject
• Decolonizing epistemologies, practices and lives: renegotiating power and contemplating global justice

We encourage authors to engage work on Southern theory and movements and approaches prioritising and promoting Southern epistemologies and counter-hegemonic knowledges emerging from struggles for justice.

Those wishing to submit an article, please email your full manuscript to both Shaun Grech (S.Grech@mmu.ac.uk) and Karen Soldatic (ajks123@bigpond.com). Please insert ‘Submission for Disability and Colonialism Special Issue’ in the subject line. Manuscripts will be sent anonymously for double peer review, and comments and recommendations relayed to authors through the editors.

Articles should not exceed 8,000 words in length, and include a 300 word abstract. The journal style guide is available here: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/journal.asp?issn=1369-801X&linktype=44.

Manuscripts should be submitted by no later than: 1st January 2013

A love letter to the Other: Xenophily and radical politics

by Marco Cuevas-Hewitt

Forthcoming. Draft available for viewing.

Opening paragraphs:

"What better way to get myself in the mood to write an essay on love, I figured,... more Opening paragraphs:

"What better way to get myself in the mood to write an essay on love, I figured, than to listen to some of my favourite love songs? The smooth and sensual vocals of Cody Chestnutt’s ‘No One Will’ seem to be doing the trick right now. However, my wish here is not to write of romantic love (at least not exclusively), but of love in a political and ethical, though I would hope no less erotic, sense.

I begin by posing the question of love in relation to the under-examined concept of community. Beyond the ‘community of two’ that is the romantic couple or pair of friends are communities of interest, political persuasion, class, gender, culture, nation, and so on. Implicit in each kind of self-identified community are particular values concerning who it is admissible to associate with, to become friends with, to love.

‘Some of them might be nice people’, conceded the xenophobe to her more immigrant-friendly colleague one evening on my television screen, ‘but it’s not as if I’m going to become friends with them. That’s not how the world works’.

It is scarcely questioned that we should so often be drawn to people in whom we find something of ourselves. Communities have become a veritable extension of the self. Love, meanwhile, becomes reduced to the love of Same."

Dockside Prostitution in South African Ports

by Henry Trotter

History Compass 6/3 (2008): 673-690

Prostitution has been a staple of dockside social life for centuries. In South Africa, it dates from the Dutch East... more Prostitution has been a staple of dockside social life for centuries. In South Africa, it dates from the Dutch East India Company's establishment of a refreshment station at the Cape of Good Hope. But unlike other prostitution sectors—streets, brothels, agencies—the women of the dockside sex trade in Cape Town and Durban participate in a global traffic of ideas, diseases, DNA, contraband, and currency through their ceaseless interactions with foreign sailors. They exploit their knowledge of the seamen's languages and cultures so as to more effectively solicit their marks in a competitive and cosmopolitan environment.

Social historians provide passing glimpses of dockside prostitution in their consideration of larger historical themes—Company rule, slavery, British colonial governance, the Mineral Revolution, the Anglo-Boer War, and apartheid—but they have yet to treat it as a distinct analytical category through which to view the past. Yet popular intellectual trends suggest that research into the dockside sex trade would add new dimensions to the histories of cosmopolitanism, gender, globalization, maritime recreation, and the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

This article provides a quick and accessible introduction to the historiography of dockside prostitution in South Africa.

The Women of Durban's Dockside Sex Industry

by Henry Trotter

in Rob Pattman and Sultan Khan (eds.), Undressing Durban (Durban: Madiba Press, 2007), 441-452.

This article, "The Women of Durban's Dockside Sex Industry," looks at the lives of female prostitutes in... more This article, "The Women of Durban's Dockside Sex Industry," looks at the lives of female prostitutes in Durban's dockside sex sector. They solicit at a nightclub catering to foreign sailors. The paper considers their experiences as sex workers and how they deal with stigmatization, family concerns, chemical abuse, moral dilemmas, diseases, and violence. It assesses their fears and frustrations. And it ponders their dreams and longings for what they hope to achieve through this work.

The article concludes with the idea that dockside women are relatively empowered compared to their streetwalking & brothel-working counterparts. Since most hail from upcountry locales, they successfully live "double lives" that protect them from family and communal reprisal. Since their clients are foreign transients, the men pose no threat to their identities (they have no social power outside the dockside world). Since the women solicit from a safe nightclub, they retain the right of refusal. And because they're the knowledgeable locals, they choose the location of sex, which enhances their power to insist on condom-use.

Ironically, these upcountry women are perhaps the most cosmopolitan citizens of Durban as they entertain dozens of nationalities every evening.

Zoë Wicomb, the Cape & the Cosmopolitan: An introduction

by Andrew van der Vlies

With Kai Easton. Safundi: The Journal of South African and American Studies 12.3/4 (July-October 2011): 249-59. [DOI: 10.1080/17533171.2011.586827]

Zoë Wicomb’s Queer Cosmopolitanisms

by Andrew van der Vlies

Safundi: The Journal of South African and American Studies [ISSN 1753-3171 (print) / ISSN 1543-1304 (online)] 12.3/4 (July-October 2011): 425-44. [DOI: 10.1080/17533171.2011.586838]

Globophilia (Encyclopedia Entry)

by Richard Kahn

The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Globalization, First Edition. Edited by George Ritzer. © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2012 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Des black blocks aux alter-activistes: pôles et formes d'engagement des jeunes altermondialistes»

by Geoffrey Pleyers

Pleyers G., “Des black blocks aux alteractivistes : Pôles et formes d’engagement des jeunes altermondialistes”, Lien Social et Politiques, 2004, n°51, pp. 123-134.

Voir aussi le chapitre 3 de
"Alter-Globalization. Becoming actors in the global age", Cambridge, Polity, dec. 2010.
http://uclouvain.academia.edu/GeoffreyPleyers/Books/347185/Alter-globalization._Becoming_Actors_in_the_global_age

Massivement impliqués dans les mobilisations altermondialistes, les jeunes n’ont pas pour autant renoncé à leur... more Massivement impliqués dans les mobilisations altermondialistes, les jeunes n’ont pas pour autant renoncé à leur profond désenchantement à l’égard des structures et acteurs traditionnels de la vie sociale et politique, ni à leur individuation. C’est au contraire sur ces bases et en s’appuyant sur leur adaptation à la société informationnelle qu’ils créent progressivement de nouvelles cultures de l’engagement et des visions différentes du politique.
A partir d’une recherche réalisée en Europe et en Amérique Latine, cet article tentera dans un premier temps de dégager différents pôles parmi ces jeunes altermondialistes. Il se penchera ensuite sur les formes d’engagement privilégiées avant d’analyser leurs conceptions du politique.

The Social Forums as an ideal model of convergence

by Geoffrey Pleyers

The World Social Forum, a Globalisation from Below?

by Geoffrey Pleyers

See also:
Geoffrey Pleyers, Alter-Globalization. Becoming Actor in the Global Age, Polity Press, Cambridge, (Dec. 2010). Prefacio por Alain Touraine.
http://uclouvain.academia.edu/GeoffreyPleyers/Books/347185/Alter-globalization._Becoming_Actors_in_the_global_age

Cosmopolitanism vs Terrorism? Discourses of Ethical Possibility Before and After 7/7

by james brassett

The article provides a critical analysis of the relationship between cosmopolitanism and terrorism, via the question... more The article provides a critical analysis of the relationship between cosmopolitanism and terrorism, via the question of response. Using 9/11 and 7/7 as key moments in the evolution of this relationship, the article asks: how does cosmopolitanism respond to terrorism? What limits does this response contain? How might we go beyond such limits? It is argued that cosmopolitan responses to terrorism provide an important, but limited (and sometimes limiting), alternative to mainstream discourses on terror. After 9/11 the possibility for cosmopolitan thinking ‘beyond’ the mainstream view was articulated by a range of authors, including Archibugi, Habermas, Held and Linklater. A brief survey suggests that defending international law, constructing international institutions and alleviating global poverty were seen as good responses, in the context of divisive mainstream politics. However, by engaging a case study of the Make Poverty History campaign, the article argues that when cosmopolitan ideas were cemented in practice, the distinctiveness of a cosmopolitan response faded. This point was brought into sharp relief by a number of moralising responses to 7/7. Straightforward dichotomies between ‘barbaric terrorists’ and ‘civilised cosmopolitans’ served to construct cosmopolitanism as a coherent, and united, global community. Available tactics, for this ‘community’, were reduced to more-of-the same – more aid, more global democracy – and assertions of a moral equivalence between Bush and ‘Terror’, such that ‘you are either with cosmopolitans, or, you are with the War on Terror’. In light of
these ethical closures, and drawing from the arguments of Jacques Derrida and Judith Butler, the article identifies some cursory ways in which cosmopolitans might think beyond such limits, to articulate an imaginative and engaged approach to global ethics.

Moving Worlds Info Volume 12

by Moving Worlds: A Journal of Transcultural Writings

Globalising European Urban Bourgeoisies? Rooted middle classes and partial exit in Paris, Lyon, Madrid and Milan

by Alberta Andreotti

with Patrick Le Galès and Francisco Javier Moreno Fuentes

Introduction to a fothcoming book:
This book aims at empirically testing the role of urban upper middle classes... more Introduction to a fothcoming book:
This book aims at empirically testing the role of urban upper middle classes in the transformations experienced by contemporary European societies, linking our analysis to the debate on the emergence of a transnational bourgeoisie. In this book we argue (and try to provide empirical evidence to prove) that these groups are becoming at the same time more cosmopolitan AND more locally rooted. European urban upper
middle classes have to be analysed in relation to their strategies to gain resources from the international world, and to escape the constraints of national society, while remaining part of it (we call this “partial exit”). 
MEANWHILE, they are also part of urban societies, remain deeply rooted at the local level, and develop strategies to mix with other social and ethnic groups in some domains, while staying away and increasing distance in some others. Beyond simple analysis of secession or gentrification, this book makes
sense of this “partial exit” logic both from the national and from the urban point of view. 
We argue that European urban middle classes are becoming more mobile, partially “exiting” from the national society, and we bring evidence of this (friends, networks, children, jobs, holidays, values). They also invest resources in the cities and neighbourhoods where they live, they only look for secession or
gated communities strategies in certain contexts, but remain in control of the social and spatial distance they want to keep in relation to diverse social and ethnic groups.
 Is a new European managerial service class in the making in European metropolis in relation to European/global processes?
 Is there some pattern of social differentiation emerging, is this segment of the population adopting “exit” or “partial exit” strategies in respect to the nation state?
 Is this segment of the population adopting “exit” or “partial exit” strategies emerging from urban
practices and attempts to “exit” from the urban fabric? 

A nação importa? Sociologia pública global, cosmopolitismo e sociologia brasileira

by CADERNOS DE ESTUDOS SOCIAIS E POLÍTICOS

autor: Fernando Perlatto, publicado em Cadernos de Estudos Sociais e Políticos

O presente artigo busca contribuir para a discussão sobre sociologia pública global, cosmopolitismo e sociologia... more O presente artigo busca contribuir para a discussão sobre sociologia pública global, cosmopolitismo e sociologia brasileira, analisando como alguns autores brasileiros, sob a influência da crítica pós-colonial, levantam questões que colaboram para a reflexão sobre as relações entre sociologias nacionais, sobretudo aquelas produzidas em países "periféricos", e a sociologia global. Em seguida, dialogando com as formulações de Craig Calhoun sobre a idéia de "cosmopolitismo", procuraremos destacar algumas possibilidades de reflexão sobre essa articulação entre sociologia cosmopolita e sociologia nacional.

“Unsettling Cosmopolitanism: Global Citizenship and the Cultural Politics of Benevolence.”

by David Jefferess

Postcolonial Perspectives on Global Citizenship Education. Eds. Vanessa Andreotti and Lynn Mario T. M. de Souza. London: Routledge. 2011: 27-46.