Territorialized Cosmopolitanism: Space, Place and Cosmopolitan Identity

Abstract

<p> This dissertation examines postcolonial narrative fiction as a site of cosmopolitanism that is self-consciously local and global at the same time. I argue that, in order to think through a form of cosmopolitanism that takes seriously questions of social justice, we must think through the way cosmopolitan world-views are articulated in place. Much is made of the deterritorializing forces of both cosmopolitanism and globalization, but, as the novels I examine suggest, this ignores the simultaneous re- and multi-territorialization that is always ongoing. This gap in cosmopolitan theory means that everyday lived cosmopolitanism, which enacts this oscillation between the global and the local, is often left outside the scope of theory. Fiction offers a corrective to cosmopolitan theory by paying particular attention to that which is often outside of the scope of this theoretical paradigm. Postcolonial theory's emphasis on the importance of political responsibility and the remembrance of past and ongoing violence informs this project.</p> <p> In this dissertation, I primarily engage with the two dominating strains of cosmopolitan theory: liberal-bourgeois cosmopolitanism and vernacular cosmopolitanism. I read these theoretical models alongside cultural geography and eco-criticism to account for what I term "territorialized cosmopolitanism." I suggest that territorialized cosmopolitanism enacts a dialectical movement between the global and the local and this movement between these two zones prompts ethical and political responsibilities to others (both human and nonhuman) both physically nearby and distant - reflecting the shaping role place defined in physical and cultural terms-- has in developing cosmopolitanism.</p> <p> Focussing my reading on novels that address cosmopolitanism through different kinds of places (the metropolis, the regional city, and the rural community), I argue that different places focus a territorialized cosmopolitan sensibility in different ways. What these differences suggest is the importance of un-learning typical notions of how place is used and represented - particularly in relation to the global. A territorialized cosmopolitan sensibility, in these novels, allows for and encourages this unlearning. </p>