ABSTRACT
Almost 10 years after the publication of Conceiving Cosmopolitanism, the enthusiasm for cosmopolitanism as concept that has the potential to be socially and politically transformative has not waned. On the contrary, there is hardly any social or cultural theorist that has not in one way or another critically engaged with the notion. Overcoming some of ethnocentric biases that have blighted the literature, this chapter illuminates how particular social structural changes and conditions can both optimize and constrain the possibility of cosmopolitan practices, identities and imaginaries in the past as well as in the current conditions of global interconnectedness. Like Horvarth and Dharwadker, Roche focuses on certain discursive frames in order to argue that Europe's mega-events offer a springboard for maintenance and renewal of cosmopolitan ideas and experiences. Kurasawa's chapter traces the genesis of critical cosmopolitanism as a normative and socio-historically informed approach that offers not only a theoretical critique of other cosmopolitan perspectives, but also a range of theoretical paradigms.
