ABSTRACT
Cosmopolitanism is associated with an essentially moral view of the individual having allegiances to the world. The idea of cosmopolitanism as a domain of geographically mobile, educational and financial elites has invoked criticism for describing a neo-liberal capitalist class or the elite's way of symbolic construction of an exclusive social world and hegemonic positions. The nature of the United Nation (UN) mission necessitates a particular organizational structure: a network of local offices worldwide and global distance communication structures. By exploring how UN professionals encounter new people and places in particular contexts we look at their cosmopolitan identities in the making. By this we also mean how cosmopolitan ideas that are ingrained in the UN institutional environment lend value to their experience of the unfamiliar environments. Cosmopolitanism emerges here as a constant effort that our interviewees and respondents need to make in everyday life to pursue their identities.
