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Towards Corporeal Cosmopolitanism

Towards Corporeal Cosmopolitanism

Anjana Raghavan

(2017)

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Abstract

An articulation of any kind of global understanding of belonging, or ways of cosmopolitan life, requires a constant engagement with vulnerability, especially in a world that is so deeply wounded by subjugation, colonialisms and genocides. And yet discussion of the body, affect and corporeal politics from the margins are noticeably absent from contemporary liberal and Kantian models of cosmopolitan thought.

This book explores the ways in which existing narratives of cosmopolitanism are often organised around European and American discourses of human rights and universalism, which allow little room for the articulation of an affective, embodied and subaltern politics. It brings contemporary understandings of cosmopolitan solidarities into dialogue with the body, affect and the persistent spectre of colonial difference. Race, ethnicity, sexuality and gender are all extremely important to these articulations of cosmopolitan belongings, and we cannot really speak of communities without speaking of embodiment and emotion.

This text envisions new ways of articulating and conceptualising ‘corporeal cosmopolitanism’ which are neither restricted to a purely postcolonial paradigm, nor subjugated by European colonialism and modernity. It challenges the understanding of liberal cosmopolitan solidarities using decolonial, and feminist performances of solidarity as radical compassion, resistance, and love.
Fleshy and affective, Towards Corporeal Cosmopolitanism offers a radical alternative to the disembodied rationalism of liberal cosmopolitanism. Using an approach that is at once decolonial, queer and feminist, Raghavan explores cosmopolitan solidarity in "the global south." It is a key contribution to opening the heart of cosmopolitanism to the corporealised knowledges of those who are violently marginalised and excluded.
Veronique Pin-Fat, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, The University of Manchester
Anjana Raghavan offers an invigorating intervention into contemporary discourses on cosmopolitanism. Moving effortlessly through nuanced critiques of Euro-American philosophy, her efforts re-center embodiment, affect, and emotion as crucial sites of postcolonial epistemology. Corporeal Cosmopolitanism is a compelling and sensuously rendered treatise on decolonial knowledge and radical world-making.
Pavithra Prasad, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication Studies, California State University
Anjana Raghavan is Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Sheffield Hallam University, United Kingdom.

Table of Contents

Section Title Page Action Price
Towards Corporeal Cosmopolitanism Cover
Contents vii
Acknowledgements ix
Note from the Author xi
Introduction: Incanting the Body into the Political 1
1 Locating Corporeal Cosmopolitanism: Theoretical Vicissitudes 15
Kantian Resonances 17
Mapping Cosmopolitan Belongings 23
Mapping Cosmopolitan Belongings: Is Patriotism a Cosmopolitan Feeling? 24
Mapping Cosmopolitan Belongings: The Case for Cosmopatriotism 28
Mapping Cosmopolitan Belongings: Excising Nation from Cosmos 34
Mapping “Other” Cosmopolitan Belongings 40
2 The Anatomy of Abjection: Contextualising Exclusion, Corporeality and Emotions 51
The Mechanics of Exclusion 53
Body Stories across Times and Places 65
Body as Verb: Doing Corporeality 72
Corporealising Cosmopolitanism: Possibilities and Inspirations 79
3 Occluded Rainbows: Queerness and Cosmopolitan Solidarities in India 87
Queer/LGBTQI+: Naming and Organising in India 94
Constitutionality, Legal Reform and Cosmopolitan Solidarity 97
Storytelling and Identity-Making: Mythologies, Cosmologies and Life Stories 100
Thirunangai Representations and Narratives in Tamil Nadu 105
4 Are Dispossessed Bodies Human? Gender, Exile and Cosmopolitan Solidarities 121
Windflowers: Unrooted Homes and Cosmopolitan Belongings 123
Black Masks; Brown Masks: Ethnic Conflicts in the Caribbean Islands 127
Indo-Caribbean Women: The Marginalisations of Gender and Race 134
Experiential and Literary Tropes in Indo-Caribbean Women’s Identities 140
Writing as Memory, Writing as Healing: Indo-Caribbean Women’s Literature 146
5 Love in the Time of Corporeal Cosmopolitanism 157
Affect, Eros and Vulnerability: Feeling Cosmopolitanism 158
Cosmopolitanism/Colonialism: The Janus-Faced Nexus 164
Love and Theory in Corporeal Cosmopolitanism 169
Desiring Cosmopolitanisms: Affective and Embodied Solidarities 175
Corporeal Communities: Rituals of Belonging 182
Bookends: Incanting the Political into the Body 191
References 197
Appendices 207
Index 209
About the Author 215