Making Worlds with Things

Abstract

Cosmopolitanism, imagination, and the border are inseparable. This is the notion that propels this chapter, elaborating on aesthetic cosmopolitanism. The border, integral in imagining the world as a whole, is significant for theorists of both critical cosmopolitanism and critical geopolitics. These theorists are also consonant in pointing out how pervasive borders are in everyday life. Regardless of this pervasiveness, however, the geopolitical border is still generally imagined as a distant frontier, as distant as the “cosmos” as it is understood popularly. This is where the contribution of this chapter lies: it clarifies an artistic methodology of working with things, to bring the imagination of the border into everyday consciousness, to cultivate critical cosmopolitanism. Drawing from sociology, critical geopolitics, and critical cosmopolitanism, the chapter discusses an “affective translation” that condenses meanings, particularly ones acquired through critical geopolitics, into “iconic objects from the border.” In social performances, the identity of these iconic objects shifts: the iconicity firstly captures differences, then generates a hybridity of responses in pragmatic public exchanges. The journey of the objects should not end there, the chapter argues. If the objects then become mementos—moments of hybridization made material—they continue accompanying participants into the future, thus opening up further possibilities of encounters and hybridization.