Cosmopolitanism and Global Citizenship
Cosmopolitanism imagines belonging to a single human community, and postcolonial thinkers have both embraced and reworked it from below.
Definition
The study of cosmopolitan ideals of universal human belonging and global citizenship, and of their postcolonial critiques and reformulations.
Scope
This topic examines cosmopolitanism and global citizenship in a postcolonial frame: Appiah's ethics of obligation to strangers, critiques that link classical cosmopolitanism to Western universalism, and reformulations such as vernacular and rooted cosmopolitanism that ground global belonging in particular locations and histories.
Core questions
- What obligations do we owe to those beyond our nation?
- Is cosmopolitanism a Western universalism in disguise?
- How can cosmopolitanism be grounded in particular places and histories?
Key theories
- Rooted cosmopolitanism
- Kwame Anthony Appiah defended a cosmopolitanism that combines universal moral concern for strangers with respect for particular attachments and differences.
- Vernacular cosmopolitanism
- Homi Bhabha proposed a 'vernacular cosmopolitanism' arising from the margins and minorities, reworking cosmopolitan ideals through located, postcolonial experience.
History
Debates over cosmopolitanism revived in the 1990s amid globalization, with postcolonial critics questioning its Enlightenment universalism. Works such as Cosmopolitics and Appiah's later synthesis recast cosmopolitanism as plural, located, and compatible with cultural difference.
Debates
- Universalism versus rootedness
- Scholars debate whether cosmopolitanism imposes a Western universal or can be reconciled with particular attachments, as rooted and vernacular versions propose.
Key figures
- Kwame Anthony Appiah
- Homi K. Bhabha
- Bruce Robbins
- Pheng Cheah
Related topics
Seminal works
- appiah2006
- cheahrobbins1998
Frequently asked questions
- What is cosmopolitanism?
- It is the idea that all human beings belong to a single moral community, with obligations that extend beyond one's own nation or group.