Cosmopolitanism from Below: PRACTICES AND CONTEXTS FOR ENGAGED ETHICS IN URBAN SETTINGS

Contexte

This topic is directly related to EUniWell’s Arena Two: Individual and Social Well-Being, with which  both of us are directly engaged here in Cologne. 

Objectifs visés

To run a workshop enabling an exchange amongst researchers working on a common topic. 

Démarche mise en œuvre

Online workshop to be organised if sufficient interest is received. 

Ressources mobilisées

Workshop proposed by Susanne Brandtstädter (Social Anthropology) & Wilfried Hinsch (Philosophy), University of Cologne 

Bilan et perspectives

Which practices allow ordinary people to engage with each other across borders? Which settings or  contexts help us to bridge the – often highly politicized – divides of gender, faith, cultural tradition or  class in contemporary societies? In the social sciences much work has been done to identify causes  and factors of segregation, division and conflict between communities. As a result, we can easily  identify many of the factors that allow borders to persist, hierarchies to harden, and conflicts to  become entrenched. We find much less work on what might be called „ethics across borders“; on  practices of cooperation and forms of conviviality and mutuality that create new moral engagements  and a convergences of interest. We propose a workshop to discuss possibilities of, and to collect  ideas and perspectives on, such processes of cosmopolitan moral change from a multidisciplinary  perspective. The proponents of this workshop have in the past undertaken collaborative and  interdisciplinary research on processes and dynamics of moral change; and highlighted here in  particular the role of what we call ‚the justice motif‘ in social life. We also lead a group of four PhD  students who work on emergent practices of cosmopolitan ethics and moral change in different socio-cultural settings and societies.