ABSTRACT
Introduction The following discussion further develops my analysis of the relationship between the cosmopolitan and the stranger (Marotta, 2010) and contributes to a critical discussion of cosmopolitanism by examining the affinities between the cosmopolitan subject and some of the features of the stranger addressed in previous chapters. Drawing on the major characteristics of the stranger, and through an investigation of various cosmopolitan thinkers, I delineate a cosmopolitan worldview that has close affinities with specific versions of the stranger. This comparison leads to my central thesis that a new social type has emerged that can be categorised as the ‘cosmopolitan in-between stranger’. A recent publication by Rumford (2013) has drawn on the cosmopolitan stranger and challenged some of my earlier assertions. This is not a place to quibble over which is the more authentic, ‘real’ or convincing version of the cosmopolitan stranger, but Rumford’s criticism – as all constructive criticism should – allows me an opportunity to clarify and further develop my arguments. I demonstrate how within discussions of cosmopolitanism, as with certain approaches to the stranger, one can trace a cosmopolitan who develops a more perceptive, broader and keener insight than those confined to either a particular/universal or insider/outsider perspective. As a consequence of this enlightened view, these new social actors are able to undermine binary logic and the essentialism underpinning ‘standpoint epistemology’. The chapter begins with an investigation of the so-called differences between the ‘classical’ and the cosmopolitan stranger and then provides a brief examination of the major attributes of the cosmopolitan outlook. Following this, I identify the underlying commonalities between the stranger and the cosmopolitan as a mode of being in the world. The concluding section makes several critical points: it highlights the unrealism of the realist position within contemporary cosmopolitan thought and critically evaluates the idea of openness and the passive Other embedded in the discourse of the cosmopolitan stranger.
