Cosmopolitan Sentiments After 9-11: Trauma and the Politics of Vulnerability

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.