Understanding ‘cosmopolitan practices’

Prof. Dr. Steven VertovecMax-Planck-Institute for the Study of

Religious and Ethnic Diversity

Understanding ‘cosmopolitan practices’

1. Varieties of cosmopolitanism2. Attitudes and practices3. Some examples: the Coopers vs. Stavros4. Some possible mechanisms/processes5. So what?

Cosmopolitanism as…(1) Socio-Cultural Condition(2) Philosophy or World-view(3) Political Project I:

Transnational Institutions(4) Political Project II:

Multiple Subjects(5) Attitude or Disposition(6) Practice or Competence

Cosmopolitanism as attitude• Hannerz (1996: 103) – ‘…an orientation, a

willingness to engage with the other. …an intellectual and aesthetic openness toward divergent cultural experiences….’

• Van der Veer (2002) – yet on what terms? Cf. colonial officers, missionaries

Cosmopolitanism as practice: doing what?

Hannerz (1990) cosmopolitanism as • ‘…a personal ability to make one’s way

into other cultures through listening, looking, intuiting and reflecting’

• ‘cultural competence… a built-up skill in maneuvering more or less expertly with a particular system of meanings and meaningful forms’

• ‘a mode of managing meaning’

Cosmopolitan Practice: as consumption?

• ‘ethnic’ designs• ‘ethnic’ furnishings• ‘ethnic’ food• ‘world’ music• tourism

- ‘home-plus’ exotic- not really ‘making way into another culture’ or meaning system?

Cosmopolitanism as practice: doing what?

• ‘Cultural navigation’• Reading, engaging, performing

actions/reactions, utterances, behaviours• When in Rome, do as the Romans do…• Acts/signals of and for communication

– Mutual understanding, common meaning

• For pleasure, ease, advantage, distinction or survival?

Cosmopolitan Practice as ‘doing’: by whom?

• Growing literature on: ‘…x cosmopolitanism’– ‘actually existing’– ‘everyday’– ‘vernacular’– ‘ordinary’– ‘practical’– ‘tactical’

• To distinguish from elite, jet-set Cosmopolitanism

BBC ‘Goodness Gracious Me’The Coopers (Kapoors) andthe Robinsons (Rabindaraths)

Cosmopolitan practiceas wolf-in-sheep’s clothing

• Conscious • Knowledge-based

to demonstrate right thing to do (‘I knew that’)

• Purposeful / ‘tactical’ in order to mark social inclusion / distinction

Harry EnfieldStavros

Cosmopolitan practiceas cultural chameleon

• Non-conscious• Not about knowledge

but subtle communication cues of commonality (‘innit’, ‘or what’, ‘mate’)

• Not wanting anything except shared meaning

Mechanisms for cosmopolitan practices?1. Linguistic analogy

• Cosmopolitanism like bi-/multi-lingualism?– Emphasis on communication: grammar, syntax, lexicon

• Code-switching Berlin sei eben "the place to be", erklärt ein Banker...

– Structural equivalents, social contexts, motivations?– Conscious or non-conscious? (cf. Stavros)– Related to language dominance?

• Crossing– momentary, ritualized instances of outgroup language

use to move across social or ethnic boundaries• Pidgin and creole / creolization

Mechanisms for cosmopolitan practices?2. Reading/enacting scripts

• Roger Schank: scripts – sets of semantic memories stored, allow individual to make inferences to fill in missing information

• Social scripts: adaptable to contexts– E.g. , going to restaurant

• Capacity for pattern recognition

Mechanisms for cosmopolitan practices?3. Multiple-cultural competence

• Swidler (1986): culture-as-toolkit, set of resources; ‘all people know more culture than they use’ (p. 277)

• Bourdieu (1977): practical improvising from repertoire of ‘dispositions’ (acquired schemes of perception, thought and action)

• Caglar (1994): not unlimited; embedded, conditional

• Refutes ‘between two cultures’ presumption

All begs question:what is (cultural) difference?

To adopt ‘cosmopolitan practices’,• What are borders/fault lines that have to be crossed?• What is ‘package’ of meaning-carrying traits that has

to be read, engaged, performed?• Relevant to class, locality, gender, religion, age,

sexuality, ‘sub-culture’ or ‘scene’…

Can cosmopolitan competence be taught / fostered / instilled?

• ‘inter-cultural competence’ courses

• Public campaigns• Creating spaces/events

for interaction

Spaces of ‘contact’

• Workplaces, schools, markets, leisure• SocPsych: ‘contact’ indeed reduces prejudice

• Cosmo. Practices? multiple cultural competence– or 3rd modalities: civility, pidgin, creole

Instilling cosmopolitanism• Knowledge?• Appreciation?• Empathy?• ‘Tolerance’?• Hannerz (1990: 239) cosmo. as

‘cultural competence… a built-up skill in maneuvering more or less expertly with a particular system of meanings and meaningful forms’

Max-Planck-Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity

Max-Planck-Institut zur Erforschung multireligiöser und multiethnischer Gesellschaften

Hermann-Föge-Weg 11, D-37073 Göttingen, Germanytel. +49/0 551 4956-0, fax +49/0 551 4956-111

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