Conceptualising Cosmopolitan Urbanism: from critical inquiry toward opening up power and knowledge

The idea of cosmopolitan citizenship is commonly associated with cities, a normative philosophical view of a liberal democratic world, and a cultural dimension of diversity in globalisation. Following earlier - critical and affirmative - reflections of cosmopolitan urbanism, recently, postcolonial scholars have revived the cosmopolitan claim for cultural difference as epistemological critique of urban globalisation. But the contemporary importance of cosmopolitanism as a postfoundational approach in the social sciences is mostly attributed to the work of Ulrich Beck. Based on a review of the various meanings of the cosmopolitan term in the current urban debate, this paper draws out some contributions from Beck's approach. Introducing normative-interpretative agency to historical and material power, cosmopolitanism translates into an open-ended conception of institutional change and continuity in knowledge and societal reality. As critical inquiry can contribute to opening up legitimacy, cultural politics pose a potential theoretical and practical alternative to neoliberal globalisation. Urban diversity can be a source of plural interactions that internalise cosmopolitisation processes in different material and institutional contexts, with open and differentiated outcomes for strengthening or transforming power relations. By thus reflecting the cosmopolitan relation of power and knowledge, critical urban studies shift into the focus of social science as political field and societal practice.