Cultural diversity, democracy and the prospects of cosmopolitanism: a theory of cultural encounters

Abstract

The most appropriate way of theorizing cultural diversity is to situate it in the context of a broader relational theory of culture in which the key dynamic is cultural encounters. The relational conception of culture places the emphasis on the relations between social actors and the processes by which some of these relations generate enduring cultural regularities and forms. This has important implications for political community and in particular for cosmopolitanism. It is in relationships that cultural phenomena are generated and become the basis of different kinds of political community. The paper outlines a typology of six kinds of cultural encounters and discusses four major cultural trends that variously emerge from these encounters. This approach with its emphasis on cultural encounters is the broad sociological context in which questions about cultural change and the prospects of cosmopolitanism should be discussed.

Exploring the Process of Global Citizen Learning and the Student Mind-Set

“…They transformed their frames of reference, and faced the reality of their situations, as they were starting to "become" and "be" something different. Being out of the comfort zone made students more receptive to learning from encounters and dialogue with others, a finding discussed previously in terms of global citizenship (Derrida, 2001;Peters & Tukeo, 2010;Killick, 2012), cosmopolitanism (Delanty, 2011), and transformative learning theory (E. W. Taylor, 1998).…”

Framing the Other: cosmopolitanism and the representation of difference in overseas gap year narratives

“…These are engaged to locate, perceive, identify and label events, and are how we make them meaningful and are able to communicate them to others. Delanty () has recently argued that investigations of cosmopolitanism should not just focus on social actors and their dispositions; we need to consider cultural encounters. Blogs provide a way of accessing the outcomes of such encounters at a micro level.…”

“…Engagement with the Other might involve the ‘true’ form as described by Hannerz above, be simply aesthetic or even banal (Woodward, Skrbis and Bean ). Whether cultural encounters and their outcomes can be considered as cosmopolitan is significant for notions of global political community, and debates concerning ‘cultural difference, democratic negotiation and conflict resolution’ (Delanty : 642).…”

A Critique of an Epistemic Intellectual Culture: Cartesianism, Normativism and Modern Crises

“…Think of, for example, the so-called clash of civilizations which often is, popularly at least, conceived epistemically as a clash of mentalities (Hind, 2007), that is, as a clash of fanatic religiousness and secularism (Asad, 1993). Another example might be the debate about multicultural society and cosmopolitanism in which the epistemic tenet of a (multicultural) society being only able to exist on the basis of a shared body of values and norms always tempts us (Delanty, 2012(Delanty, , 2011 Great social theories-I am thinking those of Talcott Parsons and Jürgen Habermas-used to always incorporate a psychological theory. In Parsons, an interpretation of Freud's notion of superego bridges the personality system and the social system (Parsons, 1951(Parsons, , 1964, in Habermas, Piaget's developmental psychology underpins the ideas of communicative action and the progressive rationalisation of the lifeworld (Habermas, 1984, p. 66 ff).…”

“…Think of, for example, the so‐called clash of civilizations which often is, popularly at least, conceived epistemically as a clash of mentalities (Hind, ), that is, as a clash of fanatic religiousness and secularism (Asad, ). Another example might be the debate about multicultural society and cosmopolitanism in which the epistemic tenet of a (multicultural) society being only able to exist on the basis of a shared body of values and norms always tempts us (Delanty, , ).…”