Decolonizing Cosmopolitanism in Practice : From Universalizing Monologue to Intercultural Dialogue?

There has been a veritable upsurge in the debate on cosmopolitanism not merely as a philosophical ideal but also as a socially grounded concept denoting an individual or collective stance towards world openness. Postcolonial scholars, however, have criticized new cosmopolitanism’s Eurocentric and universalizing stance. Pointing to the impossibility of global conviviality in a world in which non-Western epistemologies and cosmologies continue to be marginalized, they have challenged the exclusions and silences within the new cosmopolitan project. Decolonial scholars have also put forward cosmopolitanism as a decolonial political project challenging Western hegemony. These scholars have identified the World Social Forum as a privileged site for developing cosmopolitan projects. Overcoming the binary polarization between cosmopolitanism as imperial monologue or as privileged positionality of the subaltern, feminist scholar activists have developed knowledge-practices for dialogic encounters that offer a reading of cosmopolitanism as emancipatory self-transformation. This paper sketches the tensions and contradictions of the contemporary cosmopolitan debate in order to scrutinize the Inter-Movement Dialogues, a workshop methodology developed in the context of the World Social Forum process, as a way of grasping the contours but also ambiguities of embodied emancipatory cosmopolitanism

Constructing Solidarity Across Difference in Feminist Encounters

Die Konstruktion von Solidarität über Differenzen hinweg in feministischen Begegnungen. In diesem Artikel diskutiere ich, wie in der Begegnung zwischen heterogenen sozialen Bewegungen Solidarität über Differenzen hinweg geschaffen werden kann. Ausgehend von den Theorieproduktion postkolonialer Feminist*innen und einer Analyse von zwei lateinamerikanischen Bewegungstreffen entwickle ich drei Aspekte der Solidarität über Differenzen hinweg: die Anerkennung der Intersektionalität verschiedener Kämpfe, die Anerkennung des "unmapped common ground" als Grundlage für die Zusammenarbeit und Imagination als Modus zur Überbrückung der Kluft zwischen sich und der Anderen. Anhand der Diálogos – einem Treffen zwischen urban-feministischen, Frauen- und Anti-Bergbau-Bewegungen, Wissenschaftler*innen und Künstler*innen – und dem 13. Feministischen Lateinamerikanischen und Karibischen Treffen zeige ich auf, wie die diskursive Konstruktion von Differenz mit organisatorischen Entscheidungen und dem hegemonialen Verständnis von Differenz zusammenfiel, um die Räume zu formen, in denen Solidarität über Differenzen hinweg geschaffen werden konnte

(Des-)Encuentros en la Ciudad Letrada: Traduciendo cuerpo y territorio

In Peru, the mobilization against extractivist projects has contributed to a greater flow of communication between urban and rural spaces, resulting in the construction of networks between the feminist movement and rural women. I suggest that the construction of a discourse linking the feminist concept of bodily integrity with territorial autonomy has supported this process. I trace the complexities of this process in a country characterized by binary collective identities and the hegemony of the ‘lettered city’

The Liminality of Cosmopolitanism from the Global South : Transnational Activists in Costa Rica between Colonial Legacies and Decolonial Attitudes

The Master’s thesis examines whether and how decolonial cosmopolitanism is empirically traceable in the attitudes and practices of Costa Rican activists working in transnational advocacy organizations. Decolonial cosmopolitanism is defined as a form of cosmopolitanism from below that aims to propose ways of imagining – and putting into practice – a truly globe-encompassing civic community not based on relations of domination but on horizontal dialogue. This concept has been developed by and shares its basic presumptions with the theory on coloniality that the modernity/coloniality/decoloniality research group is putting forward. It is analyzed whether and how the workings of coloniality as underlying ontological assumption of decolonial cosmopolitanism and broadly subsumable under the three logics of race, capitalism, and knowledge, are traceable in intermediate postcolonial transnational advocacy in Costa Rica. The method of analysis chosen to approach these questions is content analysis, which is used for the analysis of qualitative semi-structured in-depth interviews with Costa Rican activists working in advocacy organizations with transnational ties. Costa Rica was chosen as it – while unquestionably a Latin American postcolonial country and thus within the geo-political context in which the concept was developed – introduces a complex setting of socio-cultural and political factors that put the explanatory potential of the concept to the test. The research group applies the term ‘coloniality’ to describe how the social, political, economic, and epistemic relations developed during the colonization of the Americas order global relations and sustain Western domination still today through what is called the logic of coloniality. It also takes these processes as point of departure for imagining how counter-hegemonic contestations can be achieved through the linking of local struggles to a global community that is based on pluriversality. The issues that have been chosen as most relevant expressions of the logic of coloniality in the context of Costa Rican transnational advocacy and that are thus empirically scrutinized are national identity as ‘white’ exceptional nation with gender equality (racism), the neoliberalization of advocacy in the Global South (capitalism), and finally Eurocentrism, but also transnational civil society networks as first step in decolonizing civic activism (epistemic domination). The findings of this thesis show that the various ways in which activists adopt practices and outlooks stemming from the center in order to empower themselves and their constituencies, but also how their particular geo-political position affects their work, cannot be reduced to one single logic of coloniality. Nonetheless, the aspects of race, gender, capitalism and epistemic hegemony do undeniably affect activist cosmopolitan attitudes and transnational practices. While the premisses on which the concept of decolonial cosmopolitanism is based suffer from some analytical drawbacks, its importance is seen in its ability to take as point of departure the concrete spaces in which situated social relations develop. It thus allows for perceiving the increasing interconnectedness between different levels of social and political organizing as contributing to cosmopolitan visions combining local situatedness with global community as normative horizon that have not only influenced academic debate, but also political projects

Feministische Solidarität als Kosmopolitik

In meinem Beitrag diskutiere ich, inwiefern die Anerkennung von Differenz als Basis für feministische Solidarität dienen kann. Ich verbinde die Debatten innerhalb postkolonial-feministischer Theorie über die Un/Möglichkeiten von feministischer Solidarität mit der Perspektive der Politischen Ontologie, um Kosmopolitik als die Verhandlungen zwischen miteinander in ungleicher Beziehung verbundener heterogener Welten zu greifen. Dafür untersuche ich zwei Bewegungstreffen in Peru, die Fünften Dialogen zwischen Bewegungen und Wissen sowie das 13. Feministische Lateinamerikanische und Karibische Treffen. Um zu analysieren, wie Differenz auf den beiden Treffen konstruiert wird und welche Effekte dies auf die Möglichkeit hat, Solidarität zu praktizieren, schlage ich zwei Konstellationen von Solidarität und Kosmopolitik vor: Kosmopolitische Solidarität bezeichnet eine Haltung gegenüber als different betrachteten Gruppen und Individuen, die Differenz als Stärke emanzipatorischer Kämpfe sieht. Statt exklusive Grenzen zu betonen, wird die Intersektionalität verschiedener Kämpfe anerkannt, das geteilte politische Bewusstsein wird als erst im gemeinsamen Kampf geschaffen gesehen, und die Praxis der Imagination wird eingesetzt, um potenzielle Inkommensurabilitäten zu überbrücken. Kosmopolitik der Solidarität meint hingegen die Praxen der Solidarität, die heterogene und potenziell nicht ineinander aufgehende Kämpfe verschränken und auf wechselseitiger Kritik aufbauen. Erst die gemeinsame Betrachtung beider Konstellationen, so mein Argument, kann die machtvollen Aushandlungsprozesse fassen, die feministische Solidarität als dekolonisierende Praxis ermöglichen.In my contribution I discuss whether and how the recognition of difference can serve as foundation for feminist solidarity. I combine the debates within postcolonial feminist theory about the im/possibilities of feminist solidarity with the perspective of Political Ontology in order to grasp cosmopolitics as the negotiations between heterogeneous worlds partially connected through asymmetrical power relations. Empirically, I examine two movement meetings in Peru, the Fifth Dialogues between Movements and Knowledges and the 13th Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Meeting. In order to investigate the construction of difference at the two meetings and its effects on the possibility of practicing solidarity, I propose two constellations of solidarity and cosmopolitics: Cosmopolitical solidarity refers to an attitude towards groups and individuals regarded as different and considers difference as the strength of emancipatory struggles. Instead of emphasizing exclusive borders, the intersectionality of different struggles is recognized, a shared political consciousness is seen as created through struggling together, and the practice of imagination is used to bridge potential incommensurabilities. The cosmopolitics of solidarity depicts the practices of solidarity that weave together heterogeneous and potentially unrelated struggles and build on mutual critique. Only the joint consideration of both constellations, I argue, can grasp the powerful negotiation processes that enable feminist solidarity as decolonizing practice

Articulating Body, Territory, and the Defence of Life: The Politics of Strategic Equivalencing between Women in Anti‐Mining Movements and the Feminist Movement in Peru

Gefördert im Rahmen des Projekts DEA