Cosmopolitan Networks in Commerce and Society 1660–1914

MARGRIT SCHULTE BEERBÜHL
tant in the context of the present volume need to be mentioned. The
modern concept of cosmopolitanism has been re-appropriated as an
alternative path or middle way between nationalism and globalization,
and between universalism and multiculturalism. A kind of cosmopolitanism
that is not devoid of local identification or cultural
identity is favoured. It is a ‘rooted cosmopolitanism’ allowing an
identity based on the culture of origin. Unlike universalism it does
not dispense with diversity and difference. Waldon and Hall highlight
the central role of culture as an instrument for living a meaningful
life. But people do not draw only on a single coherent culture
based on birth and place. Every person has the choice of embodying
elements of many cultures in shaping his or her identity. 17 People
show a remarkable capacity to forge their identities and perceptions
from diverse encounters with different people and cultures. Modern
cosmopolitanism is therefore regarded as the ability to make one’s
way in foreign cultures and become part of them. 18 People acquire
multi-layered or hybrid identities. Thus cosmopolitanism is not a
quality people are born with, but something attained during a lifetime.
It is a relational process, or, in other words, a process of mediation
by which national and global cultures become entangled. 19
The concept of multiple or hybrid identities reflects the high
mobility of our modern age and the interconnectedness of diverse
ethnic and cultural communities. Globalization has created multilayered
identities and complex loyalties through daily encounters
with foreign cultures, for example, on the part of the frequent traveller
who journeys to the most distant places and has friends and relatives
all around the world, or the local resident who lives in a multicultural
neighbourhood.
Cosmopolitanism can arise through the process of increased connectivity
and cultural contact, but does not necessarily do so. The
outcome of the encounter may be to evoke feelings of hostility and
animosity, and thus produce violence and conflict. Especially since
9/11, modern scholars point out that cosmopolitanism also creates
17 Stuart Hall, ‘Political Belonging in a World of Multiple Identities’, ibid. 26;
Jeremy Waldon, ‘Minority Cultures and the Cosmopolitan Alternative,’ Uni -
versity of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, 25 (1992), 751–93.
18 Jonathan Friedman, Cultural Identity and Global Process (London, 1994), 204.
19 David Held, ‘Culture and Political Community: National, Global, and Cos -
mo politan’, in Vertovec and Cohen (eds.), Conceiving Cosmopolitanism, 48–58.
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