Micro-cosmopolitanisms at the urban scale

Abstract

Scholars may no longer see cosmopolitanism as the preserve of the jet-setting elite, but they still tend to focus on international travel as the primary means of acquiring cosmopolitan competence. However, one should not confuse mindsets with mileage: if travel does not always generate cosmopolitanism, then neither is it a precondition for it, so stay-at-homes can become cosmopolitan too. This article draws on ethnographic fieldwork in multiethnic neighbourhoods of Montréal, Quebec, to show how cosmopolitanism can be produced and practised within the microcosm of the city. While international mobility is not necessarily part of these negotiations of difference, other kinds of spatial and social mobility are, especially intra-urban mobility and mobility of the imagination. Examining micro-cosmopolitanism at the urban scale, however, also reveals that practices of and aspirations towards cosmopolitanism do not necessarily coincide.