Short Abstract

The panel explores cosmopolitan imaginaries that inform global citizenship education and migration in the Global South. Cosmopolitan imagination is a mechanism to understand world openness rather than the Western-centric model of cosmopolitan universalism that causes inequality and marginalisation.

Description

Cosmopolitanism views allegiance to the human community as vital for fostering human solidarity and addressing global issues (Held, 2010). The concept has been incorporated into education and development, especially through global citizenship education programmes such as ‘lifelong learning’, ‘global’ or ‘travelling’ educational policies (Oxley and Morris, 2013). Additionally, international migration has become a key aspect of global citizenship, as transnational flows of finance, trade, and technology create new cosmopolitan possibilities (Szerszynski and Urry, 2006; Calhoun, 2008).

Transformations associated with globalisation have challenged the normative idea of cosmopolitan universalism, which is shaped by the diversity of local cultures. There are also ambiguities surrounding the concept which often reflects the dominance of Western culture and economic priorities, while overlooking other cosmopolitan cultures. (Rizvi, 2014)

The papers in the panel address these challenges by engaging with the cosmopolitan imaginaries of Global Southern citizens, who are increasingly participating in cosmopolitan spaces through education and migration. This approach aligns with Delanty (2009), who proposes cosmopolitan imagination as a mechanism to understand world openness, rather than relying on the Western model of cosmopolitan universalism. We are especially interested in unveiling the politics of hegemonic cosmopolitan imaginaries that generate inequality and marginalisation (Papastephanou, 2012).

Papers in the panel will answer the following questions:

1. How do global citizenship education and international migration shape (or reshape) cosmopolitan visions?

2. What types of cosmopolitanism are imagined through education and international migration?

3. What types of exclusion and marginalisation are associated with imaginaries of global citizenship and international migration?

This Panel has 2 pending paper proposals.
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