ABSTRACT

This chapter describes a critical assessment of Benedict Anderson's late cosmopolitanism. Anderson began to characterize cosmopolitanism in a more positive light as something that was not antithetical to anticolonial patriotism but instead an important source of nourishment. In his analysis of "colonial cosmopolitanism", he explained a distinctively Southeast Asian popular cosmopolitanism that he saw as exemplary for the rest of the world, a practical discourse that offers hope for changing the world in contemporary capitalist globalization. Normative Southeast Asian cosmopolitanism necessarily gives way to statist cultural identity with the emergence and consolidation of the territorial state and interstate cooperation in the service of economic growth within the framework of global capitalism. Anderson's late investigation of Southeast Asian cosmopolitanism should also be situated in terms of the debate about whether there is a distinctive cultural identity to the region. All the major colonial powers were present and all the world-historical religions–Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Confucianism, Taoism, Christianity–left an indelible mark.