Digital Cosmopolitan Flows in the Lifeworld: Categorizing the Labyrinth of Postdigital Cosmopolitanism

Article

Author(s):
Fergal Lenehan

Year: 2022

Interculture Journal: Online Zeitschrift für interkulturelle Studien 21/36 (2022), S. 13-33.

Keywords: Cosmopolitanism, postdigitality, postdigital cosmopolitanisms, normative- philosophical cosmopolitanism, lifeworld
Language(s): English

Abstract:
The cosmopolitan idea has a substantial intellectual history, stretching back to ancient times. It is argued here that the term retains a multifacetedness and, especially, a flexi- bility, which makes it very suitable for the theorization of the contemporary digitalized world. To commence this argument, an overview of the ongoing postdigitality discus- sion is given, which argues for the present, clear, real and existing convergence of the digital and the analogue. From here three macro-categories of cosmopolitanism within academic writing are proffered, incorporating normative-philosophical, empirical- descriptive, and processual approaches to cosmopolitanism. Building on this catego- rization, it is then argued that a number of categories of postdigital cosmopolitanism may also be seen, from (empirical) everyday postdigital cosmopolitanism, with both a cultural and a structural form, to processual postdigital cosmopolitanism, which retains an alter-cosmopolitan and a benign form. The discussion concludes with normative- philosophical postdigital cosmopolitanism, which is also linked to visionary re- imaginings of the Internet and its interconnections with the material world.

https://zs.thulb.uni-jena.de/receive/jportal_jparticle_01230079

Post created by: Fergal Lenehan