Description
Book Synopsis The provocative title of this book is deliberately and challengingly universalist, matching the theoretically experimental essays, where contributors try different ideas to answer distinct concerns regarding cosmopolitanism. Leading anthropologists explore what cosmopolitanism means in the context of everyday life, variously viewing it as an aspect of kindness and empathy, as tolerance, hospitality and openness, and as a defining feature of pan-human individuality. The chapters thus advance an existential critique of abstract globalization discourse. The book enriches interdisciplinary debates about hitherto neglected aspects of contemporary cosmopolitanism as a political and moral project, examining the form of its lived effects and offering new ideas and case studies to work with.
Trade Review “Taken together, the contributions advance especially discussions about rooted cosmopolitanism respectively vernacular cosmopolitanism…Beyond cosmopolitanism proper the book has a lot to say about shared moralities. Throughout this volume all contributions explicitly or implicitly address the question of universal attributes of human cultures, a traditional but usually neglected topic in current cultural anthropology. The book is well-crafted and well-edited and comes with a systematic and wonderfully detailed index.” · Anthropos
“[This volume] enriches interdisciplinary debates about hitherto neglected aspects of contemporary cosmopolitanism as a political and moral project, examining the form of its lived effects and offering new ideas and case studies to work with…[It is] a collection of seminal essays that are as informed and thoughtful as they are iconoclastic examples of meticulous and seminal scholarship replete with illustrative case examples. Of special note are Lisette Josephides' Introduction' and Alexandra Hall's 'Conclusion'. [This volume] is a strongly recommended contribution to academic library Philosophy and Cultural Studies reference collections and supplemental reading lists.” · Midwest Book Review
“This is an important intervention in several ways. It adds to the growing momentum behind cosmopolitanism as an anthropological and interdisciplinary theme and it gives us new ideas and case studies to work with. More importantly, though, from the point of view of debate, this book is forcefully challenging a number of taken for granted notions in anthropology.” · Huon Wardle, University of St. Andrews
Table of Contents Preface
Introduction: We the Cosmopolitans: Framing the Debate
Lisette Josephides
Chapter 1. Citizens of Everything: The Aporetics of Cosmopolitanism
Ronald Stade
Chapter 2. The Capacities of Anyone: Accommodating the Universal Human Subject as Value and in Space
Nigel Rapport
Chapter 3. Cosmopolitan Morality in the British Immigration and Asylum System
Alexandra Hall
Chapter 4. Experiences of Pain: A Gateway to Cosmopolitan Subjectivity?
Anne Sigfrid Gronseth
Chapter 5. Cosmopolitanism as Welcoming the Other/Imperilling the Self: Ethics and Early Encounters between Lyons Missionaries and West African Rulers Prior to Colonial Rule
Marc Schiltz
Chapter 6. The Cartoon Controversy and the Possibility of Cosmopolitanism
Thomas Hylland Eriksen
Conclusion
Alexandra Hall
Notes on contributors
