Wednesday 28 September 2011

Warwick 1B Annotation to: Introduction: Performing Cosmopolitics

In Gilbert and Lo’s Introduction: Performing Cosmopolitics the authors discuss the complexities found within the ever evolving discourse revolving around cosmopolitanism. The authors give reference to the multiple terms that attempt to rectify issues raised by thin cosmopolitanism, ‘which lacks due consideration of either the hierarchies of power subtending cross-cultural engagement or the economic and material conditions that enable it.’ Examples of new cosmopolitanism are:

Critical cosmopolitanism: (1986) cognizant of transnational experiences that are particular rather than universal, and coerced as well as voluntary. This idea has been met with the following extrapolations or proposals:

Discrepant cosmopolitanism: (1992) refers to actually existing practical stances as opposed to theoretical ideals.

Rooted cosmopolitanism: (1992) grounded in the sociocultural specificities of the nation state.

Postcolonial cosmopolitanism: (1992) which proclaims multiple cultural detachments and reattachments from within a critique of imperialism.

Working class cosmopolitanism: (1999)focusing on demotic and popular experiences of transnationalism.

“The general aim of these ideas are to remake cosmopolitanism into a more worldly and less elitist concept, an endeavor that includes recuperating ‘cosmopolitans from below’ defined along class and racial lines and encompassing refugees, migrant and itinerant workers – and accounting for the recent emergence of a new meritocratic ruling class of transnationals ‘cosmocrats’ or ‘technocrats’ . For some theorists, cosmopolitanism operates as a prescriptive vision of global democracy and world citizenship while, for others, it offers a theoretical space for articulating hybrid cultural identities.”(Gilbert & Lo, 5)

Agreeing with the writers that a new perspective is needed and the need for a space for hybrid cultural identity exploration, we have presented ‘glocal’ (Blog entry Warwick 1B: GLOCAL; Comment to B1 response to GLOCAL) as a term that is not prescriptive and yet creates the space needed to articulate complex cultural dynamics.

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