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Transnationalism, Cosmopolitanism and Glocalization

Transnationalism was originally connected to recent immigrant cohorts, but the concept has been expanded to include other groups of people, as well as a whole array of activities across borders. Cosmopolitanism is invoked both as a moral and ethical ideal, as well as a lived experience, thereby facilitating confusion between a theorist’s prescriptive and descriptive statements. In contemporary scholarship, the presence of transnationalism is often used as an indication of cosmopolitanism, and a linear positive correlation between the two is often implied. To rectify this confusion, it is more salient to conceive of transnational social spaces, social fields and communities as the end result of internal globalization (or glocalization). Glocalization allows for a twofold conception of cosmopolitanism: first, as situational ‘openness’ within local contexts and, second, as detachment from local ties. The essay explores these two conceptualizations and argues in favour of the second interpretation. Accordingly, cosmopolitans and locals form a continuum where individuals’ attitudes might range in strength depending upon specific dimensions. The essay develops an operationalization of the cosmopolitan-local continuum and discusses the specific dimensions where it is expected that each group’s attitudes would diverge.

Key Words: cosmopolitan-local continuum • cosmopolitanism • globalization • glocalization • transnationalism

Current Sociology, Vol. 53, No. 1, 113-135 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/0011392105048291


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