XIX ISA World Congress of Sociology (July 15-21, 2018)

314

Cosmopolitic and Cultural Sociology

RC16 Sociological Theory (host committee)

Language: English and French

Cosmopolitanism has become one of the key concepts for contemporary sociological theorists in critically examining various global problems, such as transnational conflicts, economic global inequalities, environmental interdependences, and refugee crises. Cosmopolitan thinking  can be conceived as  an ethos of openness and reciprocity (Delanty) capable of transforming cultural practices and identities to facilitate dialogues between the self and the foreign other; for example, the construction of plural memories and multiples selves (Taylor) and new styles of Bildung (Buber) that transcend national incorporation with transnational attachement. This transformative potential of cosmopolitanism, however, is not only cultural but also political:  cosmopolitics involves collective actions to reconfigure political institutions hitherto anchored in the logic of nationalism (Beck), to create new forms of solidarity between the North and the South (Kurasawa), and even generate subaltern critiques of power relations surrounding cosmopolitanism itself (Werbner). This panel welcomes a variety of papers that critically examine the operations of cosmopolitanism in cultural and political practices in the contemporary world, ranging from expressive performances and dispositifs of cohabitation ( Butler) to the reassembling of social and public spaces.