Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book illustrates some of the ways in which cosmopolitanism can be used as an analytical tool to explain certain identity outlooks and ethico-political practices that are discernible in a variety of social and institutional settings. Self-transformation implies a sense of continuous self-scrutiny both with regards to the ways one positively engages the otherness of other cultures and people, and to the ways one is committed to the building of a more just world in conditions of uneven globalization. Stef Jansen draws on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in the postwar period in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia to look at non-dominant memories of home amongst a specific group of urbanite activists and other post-Yugoslav refugees. Cosmopolitanism is often seen as a characteristic of the global elites insofar as it is them who enjoy less financial barriers to frequent travel.