Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper examines the nature of cosmopolitanization of national identity in children and adolescents in contemporary Japan. First, I review the contemporary debate on cosmopolitanism as a lived experience of multiplication of attachment to foreign objects, peoples, and forms of life while embedded in local, most prominently national, communities. Second, in light of theories of semiotic mediation of psychological processes and identity formation, I illustrate how every national identity contains traces of identifications with objects and peoples that do not belong to one�s own national group; national identity has been always already transnational to some extent, but the process of globalization is now expatiating the cosmopolitan element inside national identity. Third, I examine mechanisms of such cosmopolitanization of national identity by analyzing survey and ethnography data that I gathered during my fieldwork in Japan from June 2005 through March 2006. The results suggest that the development of national identity is a dialogic and nonlinear process through which an individual tries to construct a stable sense of who s/he is in the world of nation-states by negotiating identifications with multiple nationalities. This dialogic and nonlinear nature of national identity development points to the emergence of �cosmopolitan-national identity.�

Publication Type: Proceeding

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Despite diverse understandings of cosmopolitanism, most authors agree that cosmopolitans espouse a broadly defined disposition of �openness� toward others, displayed in cultural, political or aesthetic domains. It is argued that such an attitude is expressed by an emotional and ethical commitment towards universalism, selflessness, worldliness and communitarianism. Using qualitative focus group data to investigate the basis of such values of openness, this paper proposes the development of a category labelled �strategic cosmopolitanism�. The participants in this qualitative study saw themselves as conscious beneficiaries of an increasingly interconnected world and its economic and cultural prospects. They generally expressed cosmopolitan sentiments by referring to easily accepted opportunities associated with globalisation (eg. travel, cuisine, music) rather than the more difficult aspects of openness such as showing hospitality to strangers, or accepting human interest ahead of perceived national interests. These views were clearly counterbalanced, however, by sentiments of fear of �dilution of national culture� and �culture loss�. We argue that cosmopolitanism is a cultural repertoire, a set of discursive, practical resources available to social actors which is variably deployed to deal with emergent agendas and issues, related to things like cultural diversity, the global, and otherness.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: I argue cosmopolitanism is best conceptualized not as a set of principles, but as a form of moral subjectivity. The then is to articulate the cosmopolitan consciousness and conscience as processes of thinking and making judgments about the world.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: "Cosmopolitanism" involves a concept of community whose members share a number of basic human values including, equal moral worth of each person, mutual respect and tolerance, tolerance of differences, concern for justice and non-violance. Theoretically, cosmopolitan idea starts from a conceptualization of identity different from traditional constructions of identity which is based on the exclusion of "other". Cosmopolitanism suggest that there is a possibility of a world in which identities might recognize differences without taking “other” as something to be excluded, conquered, assimilated or defiled.The central problem of this study involves a theoretical and an empirical inquiry to the possibility of a “cosmopolitan identity” in general. Taking cosmopolitan definition of identity as a theoretical perspective, the study questions the definitions of “Europe” as a “cosmopolitan experiment” in view of the identity question. The accession of Turkey is presented as a case study to theoretically problematize Europe’s “cosmopolitan character”.