Moral cosmopolitanism and the everyday life: how students encounter distant others

Abstract

While moral cosmopolitanism has been at the heart of many theoretical debates for decades if not centuries, empirically driven analyses have only comparably recently fed into a growing body of literature. Most of these recent studies have successfully mapped the discourses, dispositions and affects through which individual actors interpret and experience their encounters with distant others. This article seeks to contribute to this line of empirical research by exploring the everyday situations and spheres in which these discourses and dispositions are embedded. In doing so, this study draws on a qualitative analysis of 19 students’ encounters with distant others, through both a 10-day diary on their media use and in-depth individualised interviews.