COSMOPOLITANISM AND

INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION

a postcolonial approach

reference: Cultivating Cosmopolitanism for Intercultural Communication: Communicating as Global Citizens

Miriam Sobré-Denton and Nilanjana Bardham, Routledge, 2013

TASK 1: DEFINING COSMOPOLITANISM What is, in your understanding, cosmopolitanism?

Give a brief definition of cosmopolitanism

Check in the dictionary and come up with an appropriate definition:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/

PART ONE:GLOBALIZATION AND POSTCOLONIALISM

1914

Identify the empires

THE NARRATIVE OF GLOBALIZATION

Self-congratulatory view Empathetic view

Contemporary discourses of modernity often tend to label globalization as PROGRESS.

i.e. The more integrated into the global economy, the more progressive the country.

the postcolonial view sees globalization as steeped in colonial violence, Western (and not only) hegemony, and economic and cultural imperialism.

POSTCOLONIAL VIEW OF GLOBALIZATION reminds us of the continuing effects of centuries of (mainly) European colonization of territories and knowledge production;

resists the inequalities and the exploitation of humans and the environment;

no longer conceptualizes culture and communication in static, bounded, and nation-state-centric ways;

Instead, focuses on cultural deterritorialization and reterritorialization, hybridity, and complex relations between the local and the global.

NATIONAL CITIZENSHIP VS. GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP

The discussion of Culture has to be reframed to make room for intercultural spaces where cultures commune and share the same territorial boundaries.

-Think, for example, of Chinese communities around the world: where do they fit?

GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP Global citizenship is deeply linked to social and global justice and is not simply a vague awareness of the world. Those engaging in global citizenship do not partake in any collective decision or communicative act that helps some cultures benefit at the expense of the others. They respect and value diversity, are outraged by social and global injustices, attempt to figure out how their own actions (including communication) can make a difference, have an educated understanding of the complex ways in which the world works, and see themselves as meaningfully belonging to the world.

GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP

This perspective helps us fight global injustice.

It is this transformation that

makes global citizenship such a powerful

experience.

is based in the idea of the human NEEDS rather than human RIGHTS and involves seeing plurality, understanding power systems and diverse cultural locations, and working from the heart to validate others without losing one's own sense of integrity (McIntosh)

Critical global citizens do not work to "save" less fortunate cultural Others. They work WITH Others as allies with the willingness to be critically transformed themselves (Andreotti, 2006).

TASK 2: DEFINING COSMOPOLITANISM Based on what we have discussed so far, what is, in your understanding, cosmopolitanism?

Review and change/improve your definition of cosmopolitanism.

What do the changes you brought reflect?

PART TWO:COSMOPOLITANISM:UNDERSTANDING AND MISUNDERSTANDING

COSMOPOLITANISM – A DEFINITIONIn the broadest sense possible, cosmopolitanism is about the extension of the moral and political horizons of people, societies, organizations, and institutions. It implies and attitude of openness as opposed to closure. (Delanty 2012)

WHY IS COSMOPOLITANISM IMPORTANT? environmental degradation;

global warming; world hunger; arms proliferation; terrorism.

Think of other examples of problems that are global in scope and in which cosmopolitanism is effective.

Postcolonial and critical cosmopolitanism has a clear agenda - to fuel globalization from below.These issues are examples of how and why people come together and work together towards a common goal.

WHAT COSMOPOLITANISM IS NOT - a quest for a single global culture, language, or religion;

- following international fashion trends in urban café society;

growth in tourism and international travel; - consumer interest in exotic products, clothes, world music, and so on;

- Western liberalism with a global agenda; - the imposition of Western morality in the form of moral universalism.

(van Hooft, 2009, qtd in Cultivating Cosmopolitanism for Intercultural Communication)

TASK 3: REDEFINING COSMOPOLITANISM Review and change/improve your definition of cosmopolitanism.

Write down a definition of cosmopolitanism to include some of the arguments discussed so far.

How much did your understanding of cosmopolitanism has changed?

PART THREE:COSMOPOLITAN PEOPLEHOOD AND INTERCULTURAL SENSITIVITY

COSMOPOLITAN PEOPLEHOODSTARTS FROM THE PREMISE THAT THE WORLD IS ONE SINGLE ENTITY AND NOT A COLLECTION OF ENTITIES

All human beings, near or far, from our cultures and outside, from our families and beyond, should be within our moral consideration.

This moral consideration needs to be part of how we communicate and make our way through life.

PEOPLEHOOD AND THE STRANGER

Traditional view Cosmopolitan view

the Stranger; the cultural Other;

the one that brings with him/her fear, anxiety, suspicion;

He/She is not welcome

He/She disrupts the cultural order

the Stranger is welcome, and is not perceived as someone who interrupts culture and order

the cultural Other, or stranger, is necessary for the ongoing production of the Self

The stranger is ontologically enmeshed with the Self.

The stranger is not distant, objective, a source of anxiety and fear or a menace to be controlled.

The stranger is someone from whom we can learn what we don't know. There is a give and take, a sense of mutuality between the Self and the stranger and both have something to contribute.

It is our obligation to recognize that the stranger is already in us and we are in the stranger, and join in solidarity against oppression of the stranger. Here lies the shift from the "I" of personhood to the "We" of cosmopolitan peoplehood.

This open-ended state gives up the driving need for certainty and prediction, and ambiguity is seen as an opportunity for new meaning to emerge, for intercultural growth and critical self-transformation.

HOW WOULD YOU CAPTION THIS PHOTO? (MEDIALIB.GLOGSTER.COM)

BEYOND THE NATIONAL- THE ROLE OF THE IMAGINATION Benedict Anderson defined nations as imagined communities. Arjun Appadurai extends Anderson's definition and says that the world is a collection of imagined communities of anonymity.

For centuries, print culture allowed nations to define themselves - and they did this by enhancing patriotic feeling between people who have never met.

Today, specially because of the transnational mediascape, technoscape, and along with heightened migration, is making it possible for people and institutions to imagine creatively beyond the nations-state.

This is becoming evident in the increasing forms of transnational life, work, and education, civil society organizing and translocal connections being formed every day to address social and global justice issues .

MOST OF US WERE PART OF THE PROTESTS IN BRAZIL (WWW.JOE.IE)

MOST OF US WERE PART OF THE PROTESTS IN EGYPT (RHETORICANDSTUFF.WORDPRESS)

IMAGINATION AND EMPATHY What we can take away from this discussion is that the imagination as a moral and social force can contribute towards a sense of cosmopolitan peoplehood wherein the Self can imagine coming together with the cultural Other in a form of "one-in-otherness" to accomplish larger social and global justice goals through cosmopolitan communication.

This kind of relationship rests on our changing the way we look at the Stranger. More so, the way we show our kindness to Strangers.

Cosmopolitan empathy is : do unto others what they would like us to do for them (not what we think it is good for them), even if it's from a distance.

TASK 4: FINAL DEFINITIONCOSMOPOLITANISM What is your final definition/understanding of the concept of cosmopolitanism?

Looking back on your life experience, have you ever experienced cosmopolitanism?

Is cosmopolitanism important in intercultural communication?

COSMOPOLITAN COMMUNICATION A world- and Other-oriented practice of engaging in deliberate, dialogic, non-coercive and ethical communication. Through the play of context-specific dialectics, cosmopolitan communication works with and through cultural differences and historical and emerging power inequities to achieve ongoing understanding, intercultural growth, mutuality, collaboration and social and global justice goals through self-critical transformation.

COSMOPOLITAN PEOPLEHOOD An open-ended, Other- and world-oriented and dialogic (‘in-between’) identity orientation that is morally committed to addressing social and global injustices in their many forms. It is an embodied way of being in the world that engages views from the margins, celebrates the powers of empathy and the imagination to connect the local/national with the global and sees ambiguity as opportunity for intercultural growth and learning. Through non-violent entanglement between the Self and cultural Others (near and far), it entails differential belonging, intercultural bridgework, kindness to strangers and continuous engagement in critical self-transformation through cosmopolitan communication.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR PARTICIPATION

CRISTINA ARTENIEINTERNATIONAL PROFESSOR

UNIVERSIDAD EAN

cristinaartenie@yahoo.com