Interview of Stuart Hall - March 2006

I wanted to start by asking you something about globalization because we talk a lot about globalization and multiculturalism today but I think that cosmopolitanism is a little bit

different from those two concepts in the sense that it's a vision some would say a utopian vision of world citizenship world peace and human rights but so how

do you see Cosmopolitan in the world today with with all it's apparently emic terrible conflicts and

intractable well um I do think that I understand cosmopolitism as an ideal as a Utopia uh and what I would say is that

uh um I I think it's also very closely related to globalization what I mean by that is that

um until we can begin to talk talk about the independences across the globe in a kind of planetary way in which more or

less everybody is sort of you know is in the swim of history and connected with one another utopianism cosmopolitanism is a very very limited concept because

it means really the capacity to move around in a within very limited certain okay but once the planet is one then there is the possibility of global

citizenship of universalism becomes potentially possible Right but the form which globalization has taken which this interconnectedness is taking is of

course exactly the opposite uh it connects disjunctive histories you know the the very early and the very late the too late the too early they developed

and they developing and they underdeveloped the colonized and the colonial the precolonized and the post these so whereas we speak as if there is

one space and one globe and therefore potentially one citizenship and a kind of universal human morality the reality

is precisely the the reverse not that the interdependencies don't constitute something new I think they constitute a profoundly new historical moment they

constitute the moment when such a universal vision is actually practically potentially possible Right but the reality is exactly the opposite

interconnectedness has been made you know as a structure of power a structure of global power and therefore of conflict and therefore the differences

are overriding the interconnectedness so I see globalization as opening these two quite different possibilities the

possibility of a world driven either into uh Waring differences which is one of the possibilities or driven into an override

riding sameness and homogenization under the egis of one of those things claiming the whole of civilization so you know cosmopolitanism

raises for me this double perspective I mean what you're saying about inequalities uh is also linked to the fact that we live in a world of

massive transnational movements of uh refugees and economic migrants from one place to another and and the next question I was going to ask you has to

do with diasporas because diasporas have always been seen as diasporas as the archetypal boundary Crossing strangers and in that sense they they are thought

to epitomize cosmopolitanism but on the other hand diasporas have also been accused of disloyalty to the nation of not being rooted anywhere having no commitments

and even in these days of longdistance nationalism without responsibility as Benedict Anderson put it where they've support you know guns for the they

support Jewish settlers on the West Bank or Hindu nationalist so so how do you see the role of dpas In This

globalized cosmopolitanization World perhaps this is what huge question you're putting to I mean first of all uh

um before you get to dasp I would say that uh uh given the uh given the conflicting

uh picture of uh of globalization that I just talked about I would see the trans

enormous tide of transnational movements for various reasons you know driven by Civil War and ethnic cleansing and famine and ecological disaster and econ

search for economic benefits you know whatever is this tide of peoples and movements across the world I call this globalization from below I think it is

linked with the systems of inequalities and power that we talked about before yes and I think there are just to put it quickly that there are two ways of life

associated with it there's therefore a cosmopolitanism of the above you know Global entrepreneurs who you know can't tell which airport they're in because

they all look the same you know and who have a house in the on the Mediterranean you know you know what I me I mean that there is a kind of global cosmism there

and then people you know driven across or being obliged to uproot themselves and go across borders and live in camps and climb on the bottom of trains and

airplanes and so on both of them are are forms of globalization but do does cosmop doesn't have to be an elite thing can you have weapon class no I'm not saying that I'm saying that that other

thing enforces the cosmopolitanism of the below because these people have to become Co they have to learn to live in two cultures and learn another language

and make a life in another place they have the same costive skills as the entrepreneur requires in order to understand markets in different parts of the world they have to understand

markets too illegal markets Black Market whatever it is but they are in Translation they're living in Translation every day of their lives so there is the cosmol That's What I Call

vernacular cosmism right right partm of not uh not wanting the global life as a as a form of you know of reward for your

status or wealth but having to live the global life as one of the necessities of the of what are the disjunctures of globalization okay and that means that

uh um uh that uh these these new settlements uh as a consequence of globalization From Below are of course often diasporas because they are people

who are not necessarily made up their mind to go to live somewhere else forever but they've been oblig economic necessity or whatever is the reason to go somewhere else the question then is

what is their you know what is their position what is their position in relation to the places they find themselves in what is their relation to the to the places that they came from

and what sense do they make of that which is another way of of speaking of identity I mean this is this is the I've written about this is the identity question I'm interested in what how do

you make sense of yourself and of your life if this movement between places cultures religions languages

civilizations histories times is your lived reality what what can what can you say this is how can you say this is me and what on Earth do you mean and I

think that in many ways what I've tried to say about identity you know I don't think identity is different free floating smallest board you can get up to there and decide to be whatever you like I mean that's rubbish you know it's

tied to history it's tied to time it's tied to narratives it's tied to ideologies you know you can't just move around like that but on the other hand I

think it isn't inscribed in your genes yeah so so it is a question in that sense I think it's a kind of open question however the disjuncture between

globalization from above and below however it is resolved will affect what happens in the diasporas right if uh I mean if the the the attempt to

homogenize the world globally either militarily or industrially or economically or you know civilization principally civilization if that wins

out then of course either you join that assimilation which is what they're offering now these days social cohesion look like us learn our languages learn

our histories to become like us or you're driven into the exact opposite which is to defend yourself against that and Retreat back to where you came from as if that has remained the same and

either of those options is not really in a way Cosmopolitan no of course these are both are the retreat or the The Retreat from cosmopolitanism because the first you're only Cosmopolitan if you

look like one we're all the same because we all look the same the other is we're all completely different from one another and the barriers between the differences are unpossible and they're

uh you know they become more and more rigid they become more and more exclusive they become more and more punitive we start to Patrol Those boundaries regulate the the cultural mix

between them Etc so you know that has uh and uh people who sometimes quote me on identity forget that I've always talked

about the possibility if we don't move towards the more open Horizon C theism From Below we will find ourselves driven

either to hominization from above or to the barrier of all against the war of all against all and you've in a way set a kind of aspiration for all of us in your

work in reaching out in recognizing both difference and the battle for equality as simultaneous struggles yes so and you

you've come to England from from far away and colonize this country that's kind of you I wish I had so the question is do you feel yourself

to be a Cosmopolitan you know you hear me hesitate every time I use the word you know why because a certain view of

cosmism was built into the enlightenment right you know it's counts you know famous phas what is Enlightenment you know and C is the architect of a certain version of

cosmopolitanism and I resist that kind of cism not because there weren't enlarging elements in it of course there were universalizing elements in it but

as we know very well it is a ver version of cult pism which became harnessed back to the west to the to the Western we

were the enlightened ones and we were going to Enlighten everybody else you know this is the this is the the uh Paradox at the heart of the Enlightenment all the good things you

know I'm a child of the Enlightenment in the sense I believe in history and progress I'm not religious you know I believe in the rule of law Etc but I'm not a child of the Enlightenment in the

sense that everybody else is the childhood of mankind and only the western civilization really are the grown-ups which is what L believed it's what Hegel believed and it's what you

know what the enlightenment thought really really they thought that and people who want to defend the Enlightenment and I think in these days I feel myself recruited to their side but I have to remind them they never

understood difference they never understood they had a western conception of reason you know they they never understood the underbelly the supporting ideological

underpinnings of this particular notion of cosmism so if you if you were going to ask me if I'm a cosm I'm not a cosmism in that sense right okay uh uh

but I am in the sense that I have never found myself in the position of being tied into the notion of the nation and nationhood as the ultimate end of the

political process I know the tremendous value that the idea of nationhood played in the moment of decolonization you know

it was what in a sense enabled us to liberate ourselves from imperialism from the old style of colonialism so I can't

undervalue that moment but I see the everywhere the limits of nationhood as the all encompassing point of identification right and it just happens

that in my history you know I've sort of evaded it because I left the Caribbean at the moment of decolonization so I'm not a part of I mean in some sense I

regret of course every every diaspora has its regrets you know because although you can never go back to the past you do have a sense of loss there

is a there is something you have lost a kind of intimate connection with landscape and family and tradition which you lose and we I think this is the fate of modern people we have to lose them

but we're going to go back to them oh so in my history as it happens you know my generation stayed at home and got deeply involved in writing the history of the

nation okay and I wasn't there I was watching it from afar so I wasn't I'm not enclosed in that so I see now

the limits of that right I look back at the Caribbean and I see that they cannot move any further within the framework of the nation indeed within the framework of the nation they're being driven by

global forces which they don't have any leverage on right and I came to England I couldn't be a I couldn't be a member of this one either because I was already

derated from it you know though I've chosen to live here and marry into it and so on I I'm not a you know part of the conception of the nation like that

so I'm a Cosmopolitan by default you might say have to find my way amongst like many of us amongst many attachments many identifications none of them whole

I have to recognize how limited that is and I have to I've tried to maintain what I would call the openness of the Horizon to that which I not you know the

experiences I have not had yeah because that's really you know if if this is a global moment there's so many experiences we know nothing about so we

can't close it up around even our own history even if they're Cosmopolitan there are Cosmopolitan world still to uncover so it's the Horizon towards the

towards I don't want to make a fetish of otherness you know but it's towards that point where we our experience our history ends and another history begins

which is adjunct to us it it overlaps with us we've had we know part of it you know I think of Palestine yes because you know though I've never written

extensively about it you know my uh it has been at the center of my political world for many many years partly through my friendship with ad s and so on I just

think that it is it's one of the ones I can't let go you know I don't know it I've never been to it you know I look at these pictures I look at these people on

the television I look at Edwards and Jean Moore's book open often Open Sky you know I think I know these people

they're not my people uh but I know them I ought to know them better I know their experience I know what it's like to be colonized be occupied by another place you know I know what it's like not to be

in your home to see your home across a bar you know so I share so much with them but they come from another tradition another world another religious Universe

another language another literature you know so you know they're not me but I'm open in some ways to their existing now in my Global World they are part of my

Global World you know you talked about um the people you grew up with who became the inscribers of the nation in Jamaica and the Caribbean do you think

you could be a Cosmopolitan at home say in Africa or the Caribbean do you do you have to be locked into that National Vision or are you can you also be a

Cosmopolitan in your own country in some way that is a very hard question and I'm not a good person to answer it the reason is because the Caribbean is by

definition C you know the original people don't existed long so everybody who's there came from somewhere else the British the Spanish the Dutch the

Portuguese the Indians the pakistanis the Africans everybody comes from somewhere else okay so you're sort of a natural Cosmopolitan there are some

places like that and the Very distinctiveness of Caribbean Creo culture what is really indigenously Caribbean is itself the mix that is what is peculiar about it this is different

from asking the question about you know people from Africa say yeah if you come from west or east African country country colonization you know impacted

on on your country and deconstructed it and reconstructed something else in what sense can you be can you remain at home and become and be a colant I think that

is more difficult but I think if you understand your history and if you don't have uh you know some um if you don't have some

originary conception of your own culture has really always the same you know has been throbbing away there since the tribal P went on the ground during

colonialism is now coming back just as it was if you don't have that conception of History you see the degree to which who you are now and what your Society is

it has been made and remade and is being remade Again by forces which are essentially Global which are outside of you in some fundamental way MH but I

think this is a different kind of cult pism from the one which is available to you and me you know who made who've traveled to different we've been obliged to think ourselves as different and we

can't have an originary conception of culture because we know our own cultural being has changed has been transformed historically and we see our people like us being transformed by the new

experience so we are bound to have that so I think that you know for an anthropologist my question is uh other than two or three different conceptions

of culture yes you know or or is it that is it that you know is what I'm trying to

say right namely that culture is always open and the the real question is is a balance yeah cultures which have remained pretty steady which have not

had to absorb large numbers of people they've been influenced by and shape by the outside too so there aren't they aren't self-sufficient but of course their sense of movement and of otherness

and difference is bound to be more limited a more limited space to operate in from those of us who either come like me come from an already D I mean I'm

twice diaspora that come from what is in fact the diaspora ciz culture yeah so it's easy for me to take on but I don't know about but I mean as one Anthropologist i' said that people say

in Africa have already had a journey yes away from that yes theoretically closed culture which it

may or may not have once existed so that they've already been on a journey and part of that Journey that they've been on especially I suppose the elites but even the labor migrants who went to the

city to work or whatever and part of that Journey has been the making of the nation and it's within the national Contour that one has to consider whether

you are yeah a Cosmopolitan or not I mean that would be the question if you are an African member of an elite are you going to be a a person who just

Embraces external globalization or or espouses national homogenization or are you going to be somebody who believes in this kind of openness maybe the country and

Enlightenment I don't know yeah well uh I mean I would I agree with that uh uh I like that we thinking about that's sort of that's a better way of putting it than I was trying to say when I said you

know they have already been remade by many fols they're already part of a cosmopolitanization process so really it's it's more a

question of you know not not ideology as such but but of how the culture understands itself right you know whether it understands whether whether

there's some impulsion to understand itself as an original one to which the only really cultural Pro progress can be back towards the the original right or

whether it understands itself as inevitably open and then is working to try to strike the balance between what needs to change and what can be let in

and let in on what terms and so on exactly yeah and that I think is a in a sense that is the big cultural question which is as soon as the globe sort of

becomes one uh but is one not because it's all the same but one because it's all different that is exactly the question of what happens at the at these

poorest borders between cultures and peoples and histories I mean the other side of thinking about whether you could be a Cosmopolitan in your own country is

can you be a Cosmopolitan if you don't have commitments to a place or people or or or maybe even culture I don't know

is it possible to be a Cosmopolitan with about these this rootedness somewhere well I would have said not you know so I think I think the I'm afraid of the word

because I think it sort of suggests that it sort of invokes a kind of cultureless uh rooted L you know uh uh

image of a person who's kind of floating free floating sampling all the cultures you know like uh uh my my my

entrepreneur my Global entrepreneur in in the in the first class waiting room of some airport is a good idea you know they love you know bit of Japanese

cooking and a bit of Indian cooking hair you know and the French cuisine there they sample all of them but but none comes from an attachment to a particular way of handling food you know ET that

doesn't mean you need to eat that way all the time but you sort of know what it is like to be attached yeah I think without that uh uh uh the old you know

the old old Marxist J ruthless C pois has some substance to it free floating you know and I think in many

ways this is here here we encounter an interesting interface there is a sort of interface with one aspect of

liberalism which exactly thinks we can only really calculate what individuals are like when we free them from all

their attachments no religion no culture Nothing free floating atoms Contracting with other free floating atoms you know and you know I think this is exactly one

of the limitations of liberalism it's never understood culture not not it's never sunk itself into culture but it's never understood culture it's never

understood that its own uh you know this idea of the atomized individual has of course played its role you know the notion of the rule of law depends on a certain abstraction from from cultures

and particularities so it does it does have its value but it's never understood that it is always underpinned by its own culture know no there's no liberal

democracy which doesn't have roots in you know I suppose you always in in in a in a community right so you always thought your struggles if they may be called Cosmopolitan struggles from a

particular location yes yes exactly so I believe in that you know in locatedness in position attachment but I believe in I believe that those are rarely

singular yeah I don't think they kind of overlap that the attachment to community is the same as the attachment to culture is the same yeah and I don't think that

I think that all of that has to be aware of its limits right that's important there's one there's one question that I've been thinking about and I wanted to ask what you think I mean there's a

tendency to see cosmopolitans as individual Travelers who move around and as you say in a way T have familiarity with different cultures or different

states but but maybe cosmopolitanism is really a collective phenomenon it's a coming together of people from many different places potentially to create

something new maybe even a new culture yeah so I wonder what what you how you would respond to that question is it is a Cosmopolitan really an individual or

is it something that's created by a bunch of individuals like you the people in your no I mean I I think of it as a as a

as more of a collective phenomenon you know when I'm interested in in certain parts of the world probably in an earlier

period really the cosmopolitanism of Trade A lot of those places are in the Middle East yeah you know because such a Confluence of Europe and and the East

and so on and the South uh and you know places like that I think are extremely interesting in which

uh the cultures don't merge into creating something entirely new yes but it's known as a place in which many

cultures and many friendships and marriages across cultural LS you know so it's known as a place where there are many cultures going on uh very often

it's not it doesn't it's not uh driven by uh um uh you know by the harsh disciplines of a labor market of people

without work searching for work so really markets but of a more local kind if you understand what I mean yeah not

the market as a as a capital capitalist abstraction but market and trade you know trade is people follow the roots of trade you know and I think these are

really interesting places to think about and people who are attached to them they don't often last a long time but people who are attached to them I mean t go is written about it you know people talk

about beut and Lebanon at one at one time as a place like that they talk about the eastern Mediterranean like that and North Africa you know places where and they have often been places

where these differences are tolerated there are not places of race RS and of ethnic cleansing and of religious conversion you know people had different religions so they they had their

attachments they had their attachments to ways of life they had their distinct family traditions and so on but they were not um evangelizing right they were not trying

to recruit people too you know they didn't feel that there was a sort of tussle it's not a crusading vision of you must be like me you must give up

what you think and be like me and these are and these are just you know the these are utopian spots for me you know there's a whole history there but as a

place if I took you into it as a place you you would have to call it cos because you know I you know I lie beside the man who is trying to teach me Russian he doesn't have a single word of

English you know I said that's what Danel so thrilled when I tell him that when he's going home he's teaching the nurse his thing they're teaching him he

says to her what are you what are you teaching me Tagalog of course which is you know what they speak in the Philippine you know I think

this man who's trying desperately to learn English meanwhile holding on uh you know as an aabani to Russian which he speaks to the Polish woman who is

cleaning the ward and trying to teach this Filipino nurse who is teaching him tagalo well this is a pretty you know M

yeah so maybe they glot Place Cosmopolitan sides like little islands in the middle of this yeah country me you I think of them of the SES rather

than it's hard to think of them with a polity and you know a structure like that but as social sites places have historically come together I think I

think there are many and one of them is British hospitals in the 21st Cent Century right I mean I have one final question uh to you which is a kind of

serious question I think but it's you know one that is a clear answer to at the moment which is do you think we should uh impose Cosmopolitan values

on other people's or places should we sort of impose human rights or democracy can we impose them I mean seems a very difficult question to me

very difficult question very difficult question um uh you know I think the uh first of all I I don't

I I don't know that I would use cosmopolitanism in that way interchangeably with democracy and human rights you I know that they belong to a

kind of common frame I would I think democracy is being imposed um you know almost as part of

a as part of a new Imperial or Neo imperial system the more it's hollowed out in so-called democracies the more everybody else is

required to have it and people you know in Iraq or Afghanistan you know who you know will take a long time to develop a democratic culture which can underpin

you know liberal Democratic institutions they're required to have it you know overnight because the Americans need to leave behind a stable State and get out you know for political do you understand

what I mean I don't know I don't know what that is you know what that is really this is not to say that you know I don't think that I wouldn't like to see more and more societies moving towards genuine

democracy because but but I but it's because of a moral and political commitment you know commitment to people not being ruled by oligarchies by Elites by tiny numbers of people I think we

could do with some a lot of democracy in this country and a lot of other people could do with democracies there I think there's a genuine problem in the Middle East about the auto ratic nature of the

governments which have held people down for you know in different ways in different countries there so I mean they need a good dose of democracy whether

they need it at the at the muzzle of ak44 or you know or a bush whatever uh I don't know you know I don't think but but that isn't to say

that do you see what I mean that it's a difficult question to argue I don't think we can March around the world and make people call po on the other hand you know the more

people can begin to Hope and Aspire in a Cosmopolitan way the the less we will be driven to ethnically cleanse people who are not like us to murder people who

won't convert to US uh you know people who won't subscribe to the Western Way of Etc yeah I mean there are countries where sort of almost miraculously democracy returned like in

Spain for example in Poland in South Africa yes yes partly because of Mandela but and the clerk so so it is possible yes of course it's possible of course to happen and

and people but you know South Africa in that sense although I know it has many problems to resolve was extremely lucky that nobody

decided to impose anti APO from outside that they managed to do it for themselves and managed to do it in a way which

didn't you know uh uh disable others from joining in once they' seen the lights or coming to terms with it and so on truly Democratic that's the product

of a truly Democratic conception of the future you know and I'm you know I'm I'm sorry to say it sounds very individualistic to say you know Mandela and the cler you know managed it but

unless you have unless you're leading in that direction things will take the opposite direction because they seem to me to be driving you towards and battling the differences or requiring

homogenization rather than an openness a critical openness to others you know as a as a facilitating the discourse of critical openness to others which

doesn't mean saying you know everything that other people do is right I mean it means saying where you think you know in this sense I'm child of the

Enlightenment I think the one good thing the enlightenment did understand was it required you know a big argument ra they required a lot of

talking a lot of pical pamphlets against your opponent you know not stabbing them in the street but it required an argument you know I think democracy is is is not people talk about the you know

stability of democracy democracy is an open argumentative you know quarrelsome Society it's quarrels that created uh you know the enfranchisement of women or

that gave the majority of people the vote it's it's you know it's it's struggles that that democratized old aristocratic and

Industrial capitalist societies Etc so it's not an easy passage but you know translate this your question to

another site should we teach Cosmopolitan values in schools and you know without labeling it

that I would say yes uh um it's time uh the cultural curriculum on schools and of course all schools are passing on culture as well as knowledge and

scientific understanding and so on they're transmitting a culture and the more we consciously think about whether we are transmitting the values of

critical openness you know of the respect for but not subservience to difference of a democratic culture of you know questioning uh we're in the

middle of a row about uh about selling uh um peages you know I see those faces the 10 faces that contribut to the labor party in my paper yesterday will anybody

ask the question why should I be governed by these people you know I wouldn't trust them to teach my grandchild across a road but nobody asks that question so I mean a democratic

culture is really questioning you know why are they in positions of power why should somebody at the top name some of them because they're very wealthy to shape the laws that govern me and my

life and the life of my grandchildren to come this is a I think if we're going to be free enough to teach creationism and that kind of rubbish in schools we ought

to be teaching a Cosmopolitan curriculum because after all Britain has become whether it likes it or not a kind of protoc Cosmopolitan Society whether we're going to get rid of

multiculturalism as a term or not we are in effect a kind of mixed up Multicultural Society not a multicultural soci Society although we could become one in which the different

groups Patrol the differences and the boundaries between them but a kind of mixture of cultures and histories and languages and traditions and Cuisines and ways of life that's what Britain now

is for good or not and to have a curriculum which doesn't teach the underpinning values the positive a positive view of that kind of

Cosmopolitan mix is to sell the past we will you know fall back into ethnic particularism so you are Cosmopolitan in your own

country in a way nice to think of but I sort of I'm a Cosmopolitan we think about it yes well studle thank you very very much for sharing your thoughts with us