Defining cosmopolitan sociability in a transnational age. An introduction

Abstract

This special issue features ethnographies that examine the trajectories of mobile people within particular places, moments and networks of connection. Critiquing the ready equation of cosmopolitanism with experiences of mobility, we examine the encounters of pilgrims, migrants, missionaries or members of a diaspora. Defining cosmopolitanism as a simultaneous rootedness and openness to shared human emotions, experiences and aspirations rather than to a tolerance for cultural difference or a universalist morality, the authors explore the degree to which mobility produces cosmopolitan sociability.

Keywords:

• Cosmopolitanism
• sociability
• transnational practices
• religious ties
• diasporic homecomings
• simultaneousness

Notes

1. We differentiate sociability from sociality, which denotes the entire field of all social relations. The notion of sociality offered by Marilyn Strathern sees ‘persons as simultaneously containing the potential for relationships and always embedded in a matrix of relationships with others’ (1996, p. 66). For us sociability is a form of interaction. Sociability builds on a certain shared human competencies to relate to multiple other persons as well as a desire for human relationships that are not framed around specific utilitarian goals.