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Querying Cosmopolis at the Borders of Europe

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  • Olivier Thomas Kramsch

    (Nijmegen Centre for Border Research, Department of Human Geography, Radboud Universiteit, Postbus 9108, 6500 HK Nijmegen, The Netherlands)

Abstract

Notions of immanence provide the implicit theoretical grammar for much work exploring the political terrain of an active transnational or radically cosmopolitan society in our day. In this paper I attempt to problematize such a gesture in the recent ‘turn to cosmopolis’, arguing that its conceptual frame fails to specify adequately the geohistorical preconditions for a politics capable of mediating between nationalizing and cosmopolitanizing tendencies at work in a globalizing world. For the case of Europe, I argue such a legacy may be more productively located in the ‘border work’ of mid-20th-century anti-imperialism and decolonization, whose struggles to redefine the postcolonial couplet of ‘nation’ and ‘state’ haunt current attempts by the European Union to craft a more inclusive and cosmopolitan transboundary future. I explore how such governmentalizing phantasms specifically inform attempts to create viable cross-border regions ( euregios ) within the EU, and continue to gnaw at attempts to negotiate boundary disputes at the outer limits of the continent. In conclusion, a cautious rite of exorcism is ventured by engaging with the elusive anti-imperial cosmopolitanism of Frantz Fanon.

Suggested Citation

  • Olivier Thomas Kramsch, 2007. "Querying Cosmopolis at the Borders of Europe," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 39(7), pages 1582-1600, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:39:y:2007:i:7:p:1582-1600
    DOI: 10.1068/a38212
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Andrew Church & Peter Reid, 1999. "Cross-border Co-operation, Institutionalization and Political Space Across the English Channel," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(7), pages 643-655.
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    Cited by:

    1. Krisztina Varró, 2014. "Spatial Imaginaries of the Dutch–German–Belgian Borderlands: A Multidimensional Analysis of Cross-Border Regional Governance," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(6), pages 2235-2255, November.

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