On Cosmopolitan Solidarity for Women's Rights

1,127 is the number of dead people mentioned in the last reports on the disaster in the garment factory in Sabah, Bangladesh, 2013. The mostly female workers, who sew clothes for Western consumers were among the lowest paid in the industry worldwide. They died as a result of an accident that, according to critical voices, could have been avoided. Our research about ‘Western’ media coverage of this catastrophe is based on a concept of critical cosmopolitanism that strongly reflects the idea of recognition and solidarity. This means that on the one hand, we will discuss the media coverage of this disaster and how the portrayal of the victims as vulnerable could have evoked empathy. On the other hand, we will discuss different ways of making use of media to emphasize interdependencies among included populations and to demand social justice. This way we want to contribute to a renewal of cosmopolitanism as a concept of competence and practice and that may help us to elaborate the media’s potentials to promote solidarity.