The cosmopolitan self and the fetishism of identity

pp. 63-82

in: Stanvan Hooft, Stan van Hooft, Wim Vandekerckhove (eds), Questioning cosmopolitanism, Berlin, Springer, 2010

Abstract

A dense static understanding of self and cultural identity is not only phenomenologically difficult but could yield to idolatry of pure identity and the consequent violent resistance to the inherent ambivalences all notions of identity pose. Cosmopolitanism, if it truly is a "world citizenship", needs to address the issue of respect for difference and human variety, which everyday nuances of the word affirm. However, the identity of cosmopolitanism itself is not a settled issue, and in all probability, much like questions of similar import, would always remain so – an "unsatisfied" yearning towards a utopia. This is not suggesting that the cosmopolitan project is ill-fated. As a moral appreciation of difference, there cannot be a 'single cosmopolitanism", but many different shades of cosmopolitanisms, many particular ways of "inhabiting the other's world". A porous, hybrid understanding of the self and culture is suggestive of such a multi-hued cosmopolitanism. Modernity's grand project of "unification of the moral universe" has left an apocalyptic effect and a host of discontents. Drawing on contemporary continental and postcolonial theories and literature, the paper argues for the hybrid self's transformational potential for inhabiting the other's world in its own individual ways.