Tarrow: City dwellers loyal to their towns
By JOE TROMBELLO
News Writer
Modern cosmopolitans remain increasingly attached to the specific location they identify with, said Cornell University professor of government and sociology Sidney Tarrow in a lecture entitled "Rooted Cosmopolitans: Transnational Activists in a World of States."
Tarrow spoke to an audience in the Hesburgh Center Auditorium Wednesday afternoon, tracing the rise of rooted cosmopolitans from early modern Europe to today's globalized and multinational world.
"Cosmopolitans in the past were often seen as a kind of parasite," he said. "More recently, the figure has gained a certain attraction."
Tarrow argued that modern cosmopolitans are not as "free-floating" as once thought, but instead identify themselves as people rooted and connected to their particular place of residence.
"[Rooted cosmopolitans] are people and groups rooted in a specific national context, but who engage in regular activity that requires [participation in transnational connections and contexts]," Tarrow said. "They have no particular positive or negative valence and can be deeply rooted in their own country."
Tarrow explained how religion, education and publishing engendered the formation of cosmopolitans in early modern Europe who broke out of a narrow and provincial identity to bring new modes of thought back to their residence. In addition, he described himself as a scholar "intrigued by the localism of the cosmopolitan."
"What most of us think of as globalization exists in the capacity of quite ordinary people … to shift effortlessly between a variety of different identities," Tarrow said. "My approach insists on the importance of ordinary cosmopolitanism."
Tarrow moved from a definition and a description of the rooted cosmopolitan to an explanation of how different kinds of rooted cosmopolitans currently promote political activism. He cited both Islamic radicals and proponents of the anti-war movement in the United States and Iraq conflict as examples of rooted cosmopolitans who have become transnational activists.
"Both have deep, local roots and both will no doubt merge back into their respective [localities after their activism is completed]," he said.
Tarrow encouraged future scholarship to investigate further the connections between rooted cosmopolitans and transnational activism in order to better understand the relationship between the two.
"We need to know more about the kind of people involved in transnational activism and the mechanisms that link them to one another," Tarrow said.
Tarrow's lecture is part of the Kellogg Institute's 20th Anniversary Lecture Series.
All News Stories for Thursday, March 20, 2003
