Download a cosmopolitan anthropology

A COSMOPOLITAN ANTHROPOLOGY?
A CONFERENCE
The purpose of this conference is to assess the place of cosmopolitanism within anthropology, both as
an analytical concept and as a political and moral programme. Cosmopolitanism has long been a part of
philosophical and political debate, but in recent years recognition of its possible applicability has spread:
cosmopolitanism has entered debates on globalisation, transnationalism, diaspora and multiculturalism.
Anthropology’s specialism as a study of social relations in global perspective, a study of the relationship
between individual, cultural tradition, social structure and natural environment, makes it an appropriate
venue for an examination of notions of the ‘cosmopolitan’ and their relevance. Indeed, insofar as
cosmopolitanism (‘cosmos’ vis-à-vis ‘polis’) draws attention to the inexorable linkage of the local and the
global, small-scale and large-scale processes, the individual life as microcosm of universal human life,
and intends a holistic knowledge, it can be argued that cosmopolitanism and anthropology have a natural
affinity. Both are modern derivatives of Enlightenment thought --both, indeed, were named by Immanuel
Kant-- and both have had universalist pretensions. The conference invites delegates to consider the
extent to which the above affinities should be formally recognised. Should anthropology admit to a
cosmopolitan constitution, or should its loyalty to localised identities in local environments --social,
cultural and natural alike-- lead it to beware new universalist projects?
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‘Cosmopolitanism’ has a certain momentum at present, in politics and academia equally. Anthropology of
late has witnessed a flurry of researches, writing and conferring. We have met depictions of
‘cosmopolitans as against locals’ (Hannerz 1990), ‘pre-modern and modern cosmopolitans’ (Stade
2006), ‘working-class cosmopolitans’ (Werbner 1999), Caribbean cosmopolitans (Wardle 2000), Chinese
cosmopolitans (Ong 1998), ‘cosmopolitan patriots’ (Appiah 1998), plural discrepant cosmopolitanisms
(Clifford 1998), and cosmopolitan cityscapes (Rapport 2006). The 2006 ASA conference (Association of
Social Anthropologists of the Commonwealth) took cosmopolitanism as its central theme, as did the
2007 CASCA conference (Canadian Anthropology Society). A number of edited volumes have recently
been published (Vertovec and Cohen 2000, Robinson 2007, Werbner 2008), and new research centres
opened. Are these significant developments? Does ‘cosmopolitanism’ offer something original, distinct
from conceptualisations of ‘multiculturalism’, ‘globalism’, ‘diaspora’, ‘transnationalism’, ‘hybridity’,
‘pluralism’, ‘ecumenism’ or ‘civil society’? ‘Cosmopolitanism’ provides an umbrella for an array of
conceptual, methodological and empirical insights which do not necessarily sit comfortably together: can
these distinct perspectives be explored in dialogue without the creation of entrenched intellectual
camps? The conference to be held in St. Andrews in September 2009 will take stock and deliver a
verdict in the form of a collected volume of papers.
The intuition of the conference organizers is that cosmopolitanism does indeed usefully identify a
new anthropological agenda. One does not intend a master-trope or panacea, but the concept is
workable for claiming a particular history of inscribing the human, and a future project (Hannerz 2006;
Rapport 2007a, 2007b). More than this, cosmopolitanism offers a significant perspective on matters of
social policy: on integration in modern society, on the bearers of human rights, on the balance between
community memberships and tradition on the one hand and the capability of individuals to be singular
authors of their own ongoing identities.
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The discipline of anthropology, according to historian George Stocking (1992), has been dialectically torn
between the universalism of “anthropos” and the diversitarianism of “ethnos” throughout its modern
history. Do we become human only within culture or does our humanity (consciousness, creativity,
individuality, dignity) transcend cultural particularities? Are human beings to be regarded as the same
only insofar as all inhabit different cultural worlds, or in spite of their inhabiting such worlds?
Cosmopolitanism encourages an anthropology which Kant might have recognised: which considers ‘the
human’ to be a phenomenon over and above proximal categorizations and identifications such as nation,
ethnicity, class, religion, gender and locale.
A cosmopolitan anthropology might be conceived of as a return to Enlightenment origins. When
Kant first formulated ‘anthropology’ as a modern project --a science of humankind-- he had in mind the
‘cosmopolitan’ enterprise of linking up of human being in its everyday diversity (polis) and its global
historical commonality (cosmos). Humankind comprised a complexly emergent singularity which might
be better known, whose lot might be improved, and whose existence was the guarantor of culturalimaginative diversity. Ethically, ‘humankind’ embodied an opposition to the ideology of an ancien regime
which insisted on essential differences of nature and of worth between patrician and plebeian, man and
woman, French and German, Christian and Jew: the liberal vision was of an emerging recognition of the
moral and intellectual equivalency of human beings as individuals. Scientifically, ‘humankind’ embodied a
premise and a promise that a knowledge which transcended the despotism of the merely communitarian,
customary, commonsensical and revelatory was an appropriate goal.
Critics of Kant have pointed to the narrowness of his category of the human, to its racialised and
gendered character. Nevertheless, a Kantian anthropology suggests the ontological and pragmatic
project of defining the human, its capacities and liabilities. Also the methodological project of finding
ways to approach the human in its material irreducibility: to apprehend individuality and the objectivity of
the subjective point of view. And again, the moral-cum-political project of aiming to secure just global
social institutions that nurture the opportunities for human-individual expression and community-making.
The conference ‘A Cosmopolitan Anthropology?’, to be held at St. Andrews in September 2009,
will be a timely appraisal of currents in academia and politics alike. Invited speakers will join with
members of the St. Andrews Department of Social Anthropology to examine the viability of
‘cosmopolitan’ notions. ‘Cosmopolitanism is about reaching out across cultural differences through
dialogue, aesthetic enjoyment, and respect; of living together with difference’ (Werbner 2008:2). But how
might that difference be framed in terms of universal human wholeness that are not decried as ‘European’,
‘liberal’ and ‘elitist’?
References
Appiah, K. A. 1998. ‘Cosmopolitan patriots’, in P. Cheah and B. Robbins (eds), Cosmopolitics,
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Clifford, J. 1998. ‘Mixed feelings’, in P. Cheah and B. Robbins (eds), Cosmopolitics, Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press.
Hannerz, U. 1990. ‘Cosmopolitans and locals in world culture’. Theory, Culture and Society 7(2-3): 23751.
---- 2006. Two faces of cosmopolitanism: Culture and Politics, Documentos CIDOB, Serie ‘Dinámicas
interculturales’ Número 7, Barcelona: CIDOB.
Ong, A. 1998. ‘Flexible citizenship among Chinese cosmopolitans’, in P. Cheah and B. Robbins (eds),
Cosmopolitics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Rapport, N. 2006. ‘Diaspora, cosmopolis, global refuge: Three voices of the supranational city’, in S.
Coleman and P. Collins (eds), Locating the Field. Oxford: Berghahn.
---- 2007a. ‘An outline for cosmopolitan study, for reclaiming the human through introspection’. Current
Anthropology 48: 257-83.
---- 2007b. ‘A Cosmopolitan Turn --or Return?” [with R. Stade], Social Anthropology 15(2): 223-35.
Robinson, K. (ed.) 2007 Asian and Pacific Cosmopolitans: Self and Subject in Motion, Palgrave:
Basingstoke.
Stade, R. 2006. ‘Cosmos and polis: Past and present’, in J. A. Scholte and R. Robertson (eds.),
Encyclopedia of globalization. London: Routledge.
Stocking, G. 1992. The ethnographer’s magic and other essays in the history of anthropology. Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press.
Vertovec, S. and Cohen, R. (eds) 2000 Conceiving Cosmopolitanism, New York: Oxford University Press.
Wardle, H. 2000. An ethnography of cosmopolitanism in Kingston, Jamaica. Lampeter: Mellen.
Werbner, P. 1999. ‘Global Pathways: Working-Class Cosmopolitans and the Creation of Transnational
Ethnic Worlds’. Social Anthropology 7(1): 17-35.
---- (ed.) 2008 Anthropology and the New Cosmopolitanism, Oxford: Berg.