Projects

Cosmopolitanism, nationalism, and belonging

Multiple and competing identities are prominent in modern life. At a large scale there is a particularly challenging tension between norms of belonging – notably to nations, religions, and ethno-racial identities – and norms of disengaged equivalence, like ethical universalism and cosmopolitanism. But identities and norms are rooted in structures of social relations and variation in agency.

Detailed Project Description

Multiple and competing identities are prominent in modern life. These correspond, in varying degree, to structures of social relations, shared culture, and mutual commitments. At large scale, they are shaped by markets, states, and other structures of indirect relations. Identities are subject to innovation and choice; they can also be deeply rooted.

Moral obligation and political solidarity follow from embedded social relations. At the same time, both morality and practical projects also call on us to transcend local and inherited bases for judgment. We do this by building connections among families and local communities, participating in intermediate associations, social movements, religions, and nations. We articulate norms for relations with those beyond close webs of belonging: fairness, for example, and hospitality. But there is a distinction between norms for direct interactions with strangers and norms for participation in webs of indirect, generally impersonal relations like markets and states. Some, like honesty and adherence to contracts are extensions from norms for direct relations. But ethical universalism and cosmopolitanism encourage transcending group loyalties in the name of justice or a larger good.

At every scale there are potential conflicts among norms. But at large-scale there is a particularly challenging tension between norms of belonging – notably to nations, religions, and ethno-racial identities – and norms of disengaged equivalence, like ethical universalism and cosmopolitanism. Neither holds a trump card against the other.

In a series of interrelated research projects, Dr. Calhoun focused on both transformations of scale as such and the ways this intersects with both social cohesion and social solidarities.

Recent Publications

Religious Imaginations and Global Transformations

“Secularism and Social Transformation: Keynote Address to the European Academy of Religion,” pp. 19-55 in EUARE Lectures 2019. Bologna: EUARE.

Degenerations of Democracy.

Works in Progress

Cosmopolitanism and Belonging: An examination of the importance and limits of political cosmopolitanism as an expression of disengaged norms of universalism, but also as a perspective informed by positions of privilege, unacknowledged disparities of practical capacity, and elite culture – despite a widespread claim to escape from the specificity and biases of culture. I also explore how to relate this to more rooted norms of belonging, including especially to nationalism. Under contract with Routledge.