Cosmopolitan Patriots

Appiah, Kwame Anthony

doi:10.1086/448846

Cited by 410 publications

(195 citation statements)

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“…The notion of cultural embeddedness challenges the traditional idea that cosmopolitanism is inherently defined by detachment and mobility and recognizes the reality of a host of "rooted cosmopolitans" (Cohen, 1992), such as "cosmopolitan patriots" (Appiah, 1997), "working-class cosmopolitans" (Werbner, 1999), and "Chinese cosmopolitans" (Ong, 1999;Ralston, Kai-Cheng, Wang, Terpstra, & We, 1996). Cultural engagement reflects the idea that engaging with the cultural Other 1 is a competence that can range from "thin," "surface," and "banal" (Szerszynski & Urry, 2002) to "thick," "deep," and "reflexive" (Hannerz, 1990) and manifest itself in a wide repertoire of practices.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transcultural Brokerage: The Role of Cosmopolitans in Bridging Structural and Cultural Holes

Levy¹,

Lee

Jonsen

et al. 2018

Journal of Management

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TRANSCULTURAL BROKERAGE: THE ROLE OF COSMOPOLITANS IN BRIDGING STRUCTURAL AND CULTURAL HOLES ABSTRACTThe growth and proliferation of global systems and transnational cultures have generated larger and more diverse types of cosmopolitans, all of whom span conventional social boundaries. Understanding this diversity is increasingly important because cosmopolitans often bridge across a wide range of transnational and global networks within and across global organizations. Drawing on multiple disciplines, we conceptualize cosmopolitanism as an embodied disposition characterized by high levels of cultural transcendence and openness that are manifested in and enacted along varied trajectories of cultural embeddedness in one's own culture and cultural engagement with the cultural Other. We then propose an analytical framework for the influence of cosmopolitan disposition on transcultural brokerage processes, specifically on bridging structural and cultural holes. Finally, we present a typology of cosmopolitan brokers and their corresponding practices and activities as they engage in transcultural brokerage. By recognizing the diversity and complexity of cosmopolitans and their respective dispositions, we significantly expand the pool of "global talent" beyond the traditional focus on expatriates, and we challenge the conventional wisdom on who counts as talent in an interconnected world.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transcultural Brokerage: The Role of Cosmopolitans in Bridging Structural and Cultural Holes

Levy¹,

Lee

Jonsen

et al. 2018

Journal of Management

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“…It is truly a 'bulldozer concept', as Capeller and Simoulin put it when referring to governance (Capeller & Simoulin 2003, p. 301 (Bhabha 1996), discrepant (Clifford 1997), ethnical (Werbner 2002), rooted (Appiah 1998) or visceral (Nava 2007) cosmopolitanism refer to a practical, phenomenological realm wherein individuals are confronted with the necessity and/or willingness to appropriate other cultural grounds and work on and around them. These refer above all to the lives of migrants, transnational workers, refugees, asylum seekers, and so on.…”

Section: What Is Cosmopolitanism?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Alien life matters: reflections on cosmopolitanism, otherness, and astrobiology

Nóvoa

2016

CCS Journal

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This is a synaptic paper that invites the reader to take a stroll on the edges of cross-disciplinary knowledge. We will walk the roads of anthropology, history, philosophy, astronomy and biology. It is mainly a theoretical article, where I attempt to provide links between authors and theories that were, at first sight, unrelated. In doing so, this paper is aimed at making one controversial claim: ideologically and politically speaking, cosmopolitanism may never fully transcend itself beyond a debate until and unless humankind encounters alien life forms. The argument is based on a simple equation. Despite all the quarrels and debates around the concept, it seems safe to assume that cosmopolitanism is the search for a certain universal identity or, at least, a search for a common culturalia, i.e. the cultural grounds wherein local and global senses of universalism come into being (section 2). In spite of the fact that identities are built in opposition and supported by difference (section 3), cosmopolitanism might only be possible as a political project (cosmopolitics) when humankind is faced with life forms that are capable of providing true Otherness. I believe that this may explain why we have been fascinated by the utopias of extraterrestrials for many centuries now (section 4). These utopias are present in a diverse array of knowledges, ranging from science to art, literature or even religion. They have been around for at least 500 years. Until now, all of them have been trapped in the realm of imagination, but there is one concrete cluster of knowledge that has attempted to transpose these imaginings into reality: the promising discipline of astrobiology. Astrobiology is mainly troubled by the de-naturalisation of Earth in order to create analogues for the study of life elsewhere in the cosmos. Provocatively, I end this paper stating that this may well be the most cosmopolitical practice available to us (section 6).

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“…Through their transnational networks of friends and relatives, professional spheres, and mass media engagements they are more than the average Kenyan embedded in relations and imaginations linking them with others beyond Kenya. In fact, Appiah's (1997) term 'rooted cosmopolitanism' links cosmopolitanism with a particular geographical space. It suggests "the possibility of a world in which everyone is … attached to a home of one's own, with its own cultural particularities, but taking pleasure from the presence of other, different places that are home to other, different people".…”

Section: Global Nairobimentioning

confidence: 99%

“I am African, iko nini”

Spronk

2014

Afr Diaspora

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In Nairobi, young urban professionals self-confidently position themselves as Africans, while they are simultaneously reproached for being ‘un-African’. I explore this economy of claims and how it relates to the way the lifestyles of young professionals become the focus of generational conflict. I follow how various actors use the notions African, Western, modern and traditional as reified concepts that comprise a discursive field of practices. Disentangling public debates and individual self-perceptions, it becomes clear that matters of cultural heritage, gerontocratic relations and intergenerational expectations, and shifts in gender and sexuality reflect a field of tension and ambivalence. Young urban professionals display a vibrant cosmopolitan way of being and are the visible results of social transformations that started with their grandparents.

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Cosmopolitan Patriots

Cited by 410 publications

References 0 publications

Transcultural Brokerage: The Role of Cosmopolitans in Bridging Structural and Cultural Holes

Transcultural Brokerage: The Role of Cosmopolitans in Bridging Structural and Cultural Holes

Alien life matters: reflections on cosmopolitanism, otherness, and astrobiology

“I am African, iko nini”

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