Cosmopolitics and the Maritime World City^*

* Critical reviews from two anonymous readers and helpful advice from the editors led to substantial improvements in the article. The remaining weaknesses no doubt owe to my selective interpretation of their comments.

Abstract

Cosmopolitanism has emerged as a humanistic perspective to express globalizing societal experiences. What are its geographies? World cities are centers of globalizing processes, and their populations and institutions may share elements of cosmopolitical worldviews. Most world cities have also been ports, yet in the contemporary global imaginary, many world cities are not readily understood as places of maritime activity, historic or contemporary. Disjunctures in perceptions of the coastal city‐region reflect changes in the world economy and human experiences in modes of travel. This analysis recovers geographical processes of maritime urban areas as a basis for understanding transhistorical and geographical factors of cosmopolitics in globalizing regions and contemporary intellectual thought.

• Asia
• cosmopolitanism
• cultural economy
• maritime world cities
• South China

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Carolyn Cartier

Dr. Cartier is an assistant professor of geography at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089–0255.