Hardback
Frictions in Cosmopolitan Mobilities
The Ethics and Social Practices of Movement across Cultures
9781800881419 Edward Elgar Publishing
This groundbreaking book investigates the clash between a desire for unfettered mobility and the prevalence of inequality, exploring how this generates frictions in everyday life and how it challenges the ideal of just cosmopolitanism. Reading fictional and popular cultural texts against real global contexts, it develops an ‘aesthetics of justice’ that does not advocate cosmopolitan mobility at the expense of care and hospitality but rather interrogates their divorce in neoliberal contexts.
More Information
Critical Acclaim
Contents
More Information
This groundbreaking book investigates the clash between a desire for unfettered mobility and the prevalence of inequality, exploring how this generates frictions in everyday life and how it challenges the ideal of just cosmopolitanism. Reading fictional and popular cultural texts against real global contexts, it develops an ‘aesthetics of justice’ that does not advocate cosmopolitan mobility at the expense of care and hospitality but rather interrogates their divorce in neoliberal contexts.
In this timely analysis, Rodanthi Tzanelli discusses questions of social injustice in the context of multiple and intertwined mobilities – business, technology, travel, tourism, popular cultural pilgrimage and social movements – that are at the forefront of early twenty-first century socio-cultural concerns. The book thus creates an interdisciplinary intervention on the politics and poetics of mobility in rapidly globalised lifeworlds and places.
Human geography and sociology scholars with a particular interest in mobilities studies, cosmopolitanism, social theory and tourism or pilgrimage studies will find this book an intriguing and insightful read.
In this timely analysis, Rodanthi Tzanelli discusses questions of social injustice in the context of multiple and intertwined mobilities – business, technology, travel, tourism, popular cultural pilgrimage and social movements – that are at the forefront of early twenty-first century socio-cultural concerns. The book thus creates an interdisciplinary intervention on the politics and poetics of mobility in rapidly globalised lifeworlds and places.
Human geography and sociology scholars with a particular interest in mobilities studies, cosmopolitanism, social theory and tourism or pilgrimage studies will find this book an intriguing and insightful read.
Critical Acclaim
‘Following on from her previous work, Dr Tzanelli’s book is a journey in complexities where she untangles before our eyes the many threads that constitute contemporary mobilities. Theoretically grounded, she uses the film The Joker as a guide to revisit our assumptions on society, politics and mobility, while shedding light on the irony of performing cosmopolitanism and calling for a pluriversal perspective on knowledge. This book is a challenge to monolithic and ready-made thinking but mostly a much-needed look, without complacency, at our time.’
– Dominic Lapointe, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada
‘Provocative, seductive, and challenging are all ways to describe this book, which elaborates a critical look at (im)mobility. Rodanthi Tzanelli analyses the laugh of the Joker as the trace of a devastating pilgrimage that breaks with the possibilities of hospitality. She allows us to share multiple images of a planet that sees itself as a mirror “unfolded-in-movement”: this book is an unmissable portrait of a world that laughs when it must cry.’
– Adrian Scribano, CONICET, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina
– Dominic Lapointe, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada
‘Provocative, seductive, and challenging are all ways to describe this book, which elaborates a critical look at (im)mobility. Rodanthi Tzanelli analyses the laugh of the Joker as the trace of a devastating pilgrimage that breaks with the possibilities of hospitality. She allows us to share multiple images of a planet that sees itself as a mirror “unfolded-in-movement”: this book is an unmissable portrait of a world that laughs when it must cry.’
– Adrian Scribano, CONICET, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina
Contents
Contents: PART I 1. Cosmopolitan irony: pluriversality and perspective 2. The poetics of justice: the joker as a modern(ist) character 3. The politics of resurgence: the joker as a factual-cinematic hero PART II 4. Meta-realist plots: the road to selfdom 5. Killing pleasure: heautoscopic performativity facing the neoliberal youlfie 6. The terror of image-making: heteroscopies of damaged hospitality PART III 7. Conclusion: unlocking certitude Bibliography Index
