%0 Journal Article
%T Cosmopolitan Sentiments After 9-11: Trauma and the Politics of Vulnerability
%A James Brassett
%J Journal of Critical Globalisation Studies (JCGS)
%D 2010
%I Journal of Critical Globalisation Studies
%X The paper provides a critical analysis of the possibility of a cosmopolitan response to traumatic events like 9-11. While cosmopolitan sentiments are celebrated for highlighting the question of vulnerability, it is argued that such questions are always-already rendered according to practices of governance that are ethically and politically problematic. In this sense, the paper explores what it calls the ¡®politics of vulnerability¡¯ via a critical engagement with David Held¡¯s version of cosmopolitan democracy, followed by a problematisation of psychological structures of knowledge about trauma. Beyond the tranquilising effects of universal norms and/or the scientific certainty of trauma counselling, the paper makes the case for developing an acute empirical politics of the subjects of trauma. Ultimately, this argument does not then turn into a rejection ofcosmopolitan democracy, so much as a call for its further politicisation and continuous engagement.
%K trauma
%K cosmopolitanism
%U http://criticalglobalisation.com/Issue2/12_29_COSMOPOLITAN_SENTIMENTS_9-11_JCGS2.pdf