Source: ReDICo
The second online conference took place between 27 June and 7 July 2023 within the framework of the ReDICo project funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research. The conference organisers from the Johannes-Gutenberg-Universität in Mainz (Department of Intercultural Communication) and from the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena (Department of Intercultural Business Communication) gathered a total of 34 contributors from different countries, ranging from Columbia and Canada to Israel to present on the theme of Cosmopolitanism in a Postdigital and Postmigrant Europe, and Beyond.
Cosmopolitanism continues to be a multi-faceted concept. It can be seen, for example, as a philosophical concept or as a theoretical and empirical instrument for describing and understanding contemporary society, culture and interculturality. Cultural theories and empirical research are constantly evolving, and new ideas enrich the theoretical as well as the empirical approach. These include the concepts of postdigitality and postmigration. The prefix “post” in these terms does not describe the end (of digitality or migration), but rather the transformation of a society which is intrinsically tied to digitality and migration. Besides, seemingly clear, predictable and dichotomous divisions between the digital and the analogue on the one hand, and the migrant and the native on the other hand, are increasingly called into question. An engagement with these central ideas formed the core of the conference.
Among the speakers, Prof. emer. Gerard Delanty ( University of Sussex) and Prof. Naika Foroutan (DeZIM Berlin) also presented papers, introducing with keynote speeches each week of the conference. In the conference kick-off, Gerard Delanty dealt with the socio-cultural turn in Europe, and comprehensively linked it with the various facets of cosmopolitanism, postdigitality and postmigration. The keynote was accompanied by a contribution from the civil society actor and social media influencer Fabio Mauri (DG MEME). This was one of a total of 5 contributions highlighting the dialogue and linkages between academia and the NGO sector.
Further participating NGOs were the South Europe Youth Forum, the Amadeu Antonio Stiftung, Perspektiven of Color and the project Better Post of the Neue deutsche Medienmacher*innen. The latter were part of the second week kick-off, which was initiated with the keynote speech of Naika Foroutan. In her contribution, Naika Foroutan gave a comprehensive explanation of the formation and conditions of postmigrant societies, and she outlined different perspectives on the meaning of the “posts” in this term.
Over the course of the two weeks, numerous other contributions on different facets of the topic, such as narratives, visibility, participation, populism in social media, critical platform discourses, solidarity, education, Eurocentrism and postcolonialism as well as language and global citizenship invited participants towards a deepening of one’s own knowledge, to gain further insights, and became the basis for extensive discussion. Many of the contributions viewed digitality as a cosmopolitan potentiality and examined to what degree, and in what way, cosmopolitanism could be seen as a real and existing element in a variety of contexts. Taking the same view of digitality in the lifeworld, others looked at counter-cosmopolitan and digital-authoritarian trends. Implicit and explicit questions surrounding migration/postmigration on an individual and/or societal level were relevant to many papers.
A large selection of papers (in English) are available online on the ReDICo YouTube Channel. Furthermore, an open access e-book with selected papers of the conference contributions will follow.