So real that it can be imagined: the role of the sociological imagination and global "social facts"

The understanding of contemporary economic geographies and global "social facts" represent the best challenge for Burawoy's public sociology. Scholars wonder whether sociology can successfully address our time's problems, keeping its spirit of service to the community alive. Indeed, recent political and economic events require formulating a new sociological imagination that is more creative, open, and accessible to the general public. In this paper, we use some of the most significant intersections of Mills' work, between history and personal biography, to highlight the sociological imagination's significant role in understanding the present. We use practical cases of applying the concept of sociological imagination close to us, such as the recent COVID-19 pandemic.

Realistic cosmopolitism and common debt: Pogge, Habermas and Lafont in the european cosmopolitan turn

The objective of the paper is to link the philosophical debate on cosmopolitanism developed between Jurgen Habermas, Thomas Pogge and Cristina Lafont with the current process of transformation of the European Union that is generated from the crisis of COVID 19. We analysed the tensions between the national identities and human rights;the moral legitimacy of global and continental taxes is debated;the tensions between state and supra-state sovereignty are questioned, and, finally, the discussion about the limits that define what is fair and the justice in the so-called: "New Generation of the EU".

Higher Education Development and Student Mobility During Crises: From a Comparative and Historical Perspective

More advanced transportation and a much flatter world structure accelerate the internationalization process of higher education, and which also makes it possible for the virus to spread quickly around the world. [...]in the age of globalization, there are much more potential factors that may cause global/regional social crises. Harari (2018) proposed in his 21 Lessons for the 21st Century that human beings are now facing new challenges caused by global warming, big data algorithms, and terrorism, and "when the old stories have collapsed, no new story has emerged so far to replace them.” [...]although the nature of medieval universities still more or less influences the current higher education, while anticipating the future trend of cross-border student mobility, it seems more appropriate to use the premodern history as a supplement, rather than evidence for proving that history repeats itself. According to the university archives, "over 500 UNC students had been treated in the infirmary and seven had died as a result of complications with the illness” (Cozens, 2020, para. 10). [...]presently, the State of New York is still the second most popular destination for international students in the U.S., and New York University in the City of New York "has been the leading host university for international students” since 2013 (Zong & Batalova, 2018, para. 16).

Determinants Affecting Willingness Of Office Workers To Use Coffee Houses Services In Bangkok During Covid-19 Outbreak

The purpose of this study is to investigate the determinants influencing the willingness of office workers to use coffee houses services in Silom and Sathorn areas in Bangkok during the COVID-19 outbreak. The conceptual framework presented comprises variety seeking, desire for unique products, cosmopolitanism, personal innovativeness, product evaluation, behavioral intention impact willingness to use coffee house services. The sample (n = 490) was gathered from online questionnaires using convenience and snowball sampling techniques. The study employed the Structural Equation Model (SEM) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) for the data analysis to confirm reliability, validity, goodness-of-fit of the model, and hypotheses. The findings revealed that variety seeking and personal innovativeness significantly impacted product evaluation and behavioral intention. In contrast, the desire for unique products and cosmopolitanism had no impact on product evaluation and behavioral intention. In addition, both product evaluation and behavioral intention also had a significant impact on the willingness to use coffee house services. Therefore, for practical implications, business owners and entrepreneurs could enhance product varieties to attract more customers for better sales revenue generation.

Interspecies cosmopolitanism: Non-human power and the grounds of world order in the Anthropocene

Cosmopolitanism claims to be the most just and inclusive of mainstream approaches to the ethics and practice of world order, given its commitment to human interconnection, peace, equality, diversity, and rights, and its concern with the many globalised pathologies that entrench injustice and vulnerability across borders. Yet it has largely remained oblivious to the agency, power, and value of non-human life on a turbulent and active Earth. Without rejecting its commitments to justice for human beings, the article challenges its humanism as both morally and politically inadequate to the situation of the Anthropocene, exemplified by the simultaneous crises of climate change, mass extinction, and the COVID-19 pandemic. In answer, the article develops new grounds and principles for an interspecies cosmopolitanism, exploring how we can reimagine its ontological foundations by creating new grounding images of subjectivity, existential unity, institutional organisation, and ordering purpose. These, in turn, can support political and institutional projects to secure the rights of ecosystems and people to flourish and persist through an increasingly chaotic epoch of human dominance and multispecies vulnerability across the Anthropocene Earth.

Catastrophe Repeats...or Else?: Eco-cosmopolitanism and the Rippling Effect of Everyday Praxis

Two very different points of entry reflect on the issue of performance and climate change. The Covid-19 pandemic, though not directly related, looms as the unavoidable condition from which to rethink eco-cosmopolitanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of TDR: The Drama Review (Cambridge University Press) is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Migration, emerging multiculturalism and planning in rural and small town Aotearoa New Zealand

Rural and small town New Zealand is undergoing significant demographic and economic transitions. Steady out-migration, economic change and population aging since the 1980s/1990s catalysed the ‘zombie town' discourse. This parallels the rise of rural multiculturalism as a new multi-ethnic demographic makeup is distinctly visible due to diversification of immigration policies responding to regional labour and skills shortages, amenity migrations, and counterurbanisation. While having the potential to restore regional economic and cultural vibrancy, these changes lead to issues related to integration challenges for migrants as well as tensions in host communities regarding diminishing rural amenities, lifestyles, and exhaustion of the limited rural infrastructure base. Some of these dynamics have gained new momentum due to COVID-19-induced disruptions, e.g. border closure. These are occurring at the same time as broader economic, environmental and planning policy shifts disrupt rural realities and opportunities. This commentary presents initial evidence from a larger study and discusses emerging discourses related to regional New Zealand in five thematic areas–demographic disruptions and new mobilities, emerging small town realities beyond economic migration, impacts of COVID-19, economic development, and the changing governance and planning landscape. In particular we highlight the need to recognise the emerging rural multiculturalism in small town planning and development, which received little attention in the past due to planning's historical ‘large city' bias and other local constraints. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Re-imagining the nation-state: An impetus from the pandemic.

In this article the positive lessons from the coronavirus pandemic are examined, focusing on the intensive activities of solidarity at the local, national, and transnational levels, the increase in scientific cooperation, the implementation of assistance policies by states, and the various endeavors of NGOs, religious communities, private organizations, wealthy and less wealthy donors, and charities to support individuals and groups affected by it. It is argued that the pandemic is not only a tragedy that revealed some of the disintegrative processes of global risk society but is also a matchless opportunity for acknowledging what can be (and is) done in the globalized world when guided by positives such as cooperation, coordination, and solidarity. Discussing the theories of globalization, nationalism, and cosmopolitanism, with special attention to Ulrich Beck's theory of reflexive society, the core point of this article is that, considering upcoming global threats of even greater magnitude, such as climate change, potentially deadlier pandemics, and nuclear conflicts, a new world order based on cooperation, coordination and solidarity between nation-states is not only desirable but necessary for survival.

Transnational lived citizenship turns local: Covid-19 and Eritrean and Ethiopian diaspora in Nairobi

This paper analyses how migrant community practices of transnational lived citizenship were altered by both, COVID-19 and the policy response from the Kenyan government. It is based on interviews with members of the Eritrean and Ethiopian diaspora residing in Nairobi. The paper demonstrates how policies introduced because of the pandemic caused migrant communities to lose local and remittance income. More than the loss of material resources, however, they were impacted by the elimination of social spaces that enable diaspora lives. These two dynamics have intensified a trend that may have been present before the pandemic, a local turn of transnational lived citizenship. By focusing on lived experiences and how they have been re-assessed during the pandemic, the paper argues that transnational lived citizenship is always in flux and can easily become reconfigured as more localized practices. The concept of transnational lived citizenship is demonstrated to be a useful lens for analysing shifting migrant livelihoods and belonging. © 2022 The Authors. Global Networks published by Global Networks Partnership and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

COVID-19, (im)mobilities and blockages: Re-thinking mobilities of migrant women in Northern Ireland.

This article deals with the recent COVID-19 pandemic and how it has affected mobilities in Northern Ireland. Drawing on the findings of in-depth interviews with migrant women and elements of autoethnographic research, the author discusses how migrant women reshape their mobilities in the context of global pandemic. The article looks into how COVID-19 has reinforced the existing mobility regimes and how waiting has become an important part of migrant women strategies. To this end, it examines waiting as both passive and active condition. It then explores politics of mobility and transgressive powers involved in migrant women trajectories.

Who Deserves European Solidarity? How Recipient Characteristics Shaped Public Support for International Medical and Financial Aid during COVID-19

International solidarity is indispensable for coping with global crises;however, solidarity is frequently constrained by public opinion. Past research has examined who, on the donor side, is willing to support European and international aid. However, we know less about who, on the recipient side, is perceived to deserve solidarity. The article argues that potential donors consider situational circumstances and those relational features that link them to the recipients. Using factorial survey experiments, we analyse public support for international medical and financial aid in Germany during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results show that recipient countries' situational need and control, as well as political community criteria, namely, group membership, adherence to shared values and reciprocity, played a crucial role in explaining public support for aid. Important policy implications result: on the donor side, fault-attribution frames matter;on the recipient side, honouring community norms is key to receiving aid.

National cultural capital as out of reach for transnationally mobile Israeli professional families - making a 'return home' fraught

The potentiality of converting capitals in new national fields following migration has been the focus of a number of studies. Another, much smaller, literature examines experiences of return migration. In this paper, we follow 15 Israeli families (where both mothers and children have been interviewed) who have been globally mobile for professional reasons. We examine cultural capital accumulation strategies for the children and how these facilitate the occupation of advantageous social positions while abroad. Having returned to Israel, partly due to the COVID pandemic, the national cultural capital the families have so actively cultivated in their children is evaluated as not authentic enough. Meanwhile, the cosmopolitan cultural capital that has been so valorised abroad, is not recognised as something the children can draw on to position themselves either. The paper contributes to the study of return migration, with a unique focus on globally mobile families returning 'home'. We also examine how national cultural capital is conceived and differentially assessed as families move from a more transnational space to that of their home country.

The Social Identity Construction of Cosmopolitanism : The Nation State and Transnational Social Justice Movements

The COVID-19 pandemic is an exemplar of the consequences of global economic development contributing to national crises that require supranational cooperation, collaboration, and coordination to address. Threat and use of deadly force will fail to overcome these crises and is likely to worsen them. The nuclear setting proffers such responses as potentially suicidal. Growing awareness of economic and political interdependency is expanding de facto awareness of existing in a global polity. Complex interdependency presents opportunities to develop further these critical global polity collective capacities. Strategic neo-functionalism can promote cosmopolitan political attitudes and values via creation and promotion of vested interests in global integration. Social identity theory posits three forms of social identity management on the basis of four primary individual impulse axioms: (1) a distinctive motivation of the subject is to maintain a positive self-image;(2) subjects form in-groups vis-à-vis out-groups;(3) individuals comparatively evaluate the social status of their in-groups with significant out-groups;and (4) individuals tend to equate the comparative status of their ingroup with their self-image. If and when individuals comparatively evaluate themselves negatively within their societal contexts, then they will respond psychologically and socially, individually and collectively. Social justice movements press for the accommodation of differences to cease using them as a basis for ascriptive hierarchical community societal status differentiation. This accommodation takes the form of creation of substantive social creativity capacities that ultimately produce measurable, exploited social mobility opportunities. It aims to be policy relevant by underscoring the tasks confronting regime strategists for managing nationalism.

Cosmopolitan tourists: the most resilient travellers in the face of COVID-19

Fear, whilst essential for survival, has the power to impair rational thinking. In tourism, fear can cease international travels. Previous studies demonstrated that cosmopolitan travellers are more resistant to irrational fear. This study aims to verify if cosmopolitans are more resistant to irrationality when facing the fear of COVID-19. Building on grounded theory, 64 in-depth interviews and direct observation, this study found that the cosmopolitan mindset, open-mindedness and strive for objectivity facilitates personal resilience, rational functioning in the face of fear. The study categorises travellers based on their resilience and suggests how to encourage each category amidst the threat of COVID-19.

Ownership based Ethnocentrism Tendencies: its Antecedents and Impact on Domestic- owned/Foreign-owned Product Purchase of Indian Consumers

Consumer ethnocentrism studies are grounded on either country of manufacture (COM) or country of origin (COO). In the current multinational context, a product is attributed to several countries. So, deriving the degree of ethnocentric tendencies, focussed on either COM or COO, restricts the robustness of the after-effects of consumer ethnocentrism studies. Therefore, this research proposes a lens for socio-economic sustainable development by adding a new dimension: country of ownership to the field of consumer ethnocentrism studies. In the light of ownership-based ethnocentric tendencies (OCET), the paper studies the antecedents of cosmopolitanism and demographic variables. It also tests OCET with relation to the final purchase of foreign and domestic-owned brands for hair care and skincare products (shampoo, hair oil, hair colour, soap, cream, and face-wash). This research then measures the accuracy of knowledge of brand ownership (BOWRECA). The results are processed by using AMOS and SPSS. The findings support an inverse relationship between OCET and cosmopolitanism. The relationship between demographic antecedents and the role of OCET in final product purchase varies considerably. The research is of utmost importance for marketers, policymakers, and consumers. The suggested new dimension, if used judicially, will lead to socioeconomic sustainable development, as due to COVID-19, countries are forced to be self-reliant and re-invent the power of domestic production.

Citizenship from the Couch: Public Engagement and Private Norms in the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond

The tension between the public and the private spheres is not new: while feminists (among others) have long called for public protection to be extended to the private sphere, liberals argue for the need for the 'defence of the "private sphere" from encroachment by the public' (Geuss 2001: 114). Although we acknowledge the problematic nature of the distinction, we nevertheless recognize its utility in delineating who we are engaging with and what, therefore, we owe them. Traditionally, citizenship, when seen as a role (rather than a status), belongs to the public sphere. We are citizens when we walk into the voting booth, when we attend a ward council meeting, or write to the paper. At home, we might think, we are not citizens but, stripped of our roles in society, we assume the most fundamental roles in our lives-as family and friends-with freedom to pursue and express our interests and desires. It may appear then, that the citizen and the person, or the public and the private, co-exist only insofar as they are understood to be enacted in different spaces, each with their own norms and rules. Drawing upon Christine Hobden's account of citizenship, we challenge this stark divide between the public citizen and private person. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced us to retreat (physically) to the private sphere, yet the rise of social media has provided us with greater opportunities to engage (virtually) with public challenges;this article analyses this reality through the lens of Hobden's account of citizenship, exploring our civic responsibilities within the blurry public-private realm of social media. We examine some of the implications of this 'citizenship from the couch' and suggest that one possibly fruitful way to navigate the blurry line between these roles is to return to the fundamentals of political society: the social contract-the project of living together.

Interspecies cosmopolitanism: Non-human power and the grounds of world order in the Anthropocene

Cosmopolitanism claims to be the most just and inclusive of mainstream approaches to the ethics and practice of world order, given its commitment to human interconnection, peace, equality, diversity, and rights, and its concern with the many globalised pathologies that entrench injustice and vulnerability across borders. Yet it has largely remained oblivious to the agency, power, and value of non-human life on a turbulent and active Earth. Without rejecting its commitments to justice for human beings, the article challenges its humanism as both morally and politically inadequate to the situation of the Anthropocene, exemplified by the simultaneous crises of climate change, mass extinction, and the COVID-19 pandemic. In answer, the article develops new grounds and principles for an interspecies cosmopolitanism, exploring how we can reimagine its ontological foundations by creating new grounding images of subjectivity, existential unity, institutional organisation, and ordering purpose. These, in turn, can support political and institutional projects to secure the rights of ecosystems and people to flourish and persist through an increasingly chaotic epoch of human dominance and multispecies vulnerability across the Anthropocene Earth.

Political tolerance in Europe: The role of conspiratorial thinking and cosmopolitanism

Tolerance has long been identified as a crucial feature of liberal democracies. Although the limits of tolerance are debated, the extent to which citizens are open and willing to accommodate others who are different from them is often regarded as a sign of a healthy and well-functioning liberal democracy. The goal of this paper is to empirically investigate the state of political tolerance in Europe today. The main questions we ask are: What explains the different levels of tolerance across individuals in various countries? Which groups in society are the most likely targets of intolerance? We understand political tolerance as the willingness to allow the free articulation of interests and ideas in the political system of groups one opposes. Previous research emphasizes education, civic activism and threat perceptions as important determinants of tolerance. We redirect the debate to a set of novel correlates of tolerance. We argue that conspiratorial thinking and cosmopolitanism are critical factors that explain levels of tolerance among Europeans. The analysis employs original survey data collected as part of a mass survey conducted in 2017 in 10 European Union member states: Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom. Our descriptive analysis shows that far-right groups (i.e., fascists and neo-Nazis) and Muslims are the most disliked groups in Europe. When it comes to the level of tolerance towards these groups, we find that more than half of the respondents in each country are willing to deny their most disliked group parliamentary representation. Moreover, we find that even after controlling for traditional determinants of tolerance, conspiratorial thinking and cosmopolitanism emerge as the most important predictors of political tolerance. Our analysis suggests that the recent rapid spread of various conspiracy theories related to the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to have far-reaching implications for tolerance as well. © 2022 The Authors. European Journal of Political Research published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Consortium for Political Research.

Social Philosophical Discourse of the World Risk Society in a Pandemic Situation

The author considers the situation associated with coronavirus pandemic and its possible consequences for social cultural processes. The difficulty in risk analysis is that the risk is between objective and subjective, between rational and irrational, between social and existential. The logic of uniqueness gives way to the logic of ambiguity, which finds its expression in the connection of the risk society with the cosmopolitism. Ulrich Beck's concept of the cosmopolitan turn of modern civilization is updated, which is revealed through the concepts of "danger", "social inequality" and through the existentials "fear", "uncertainty", which indicate the social vulnerability of modern society. We are talking about the need to distinguish between risk and danger, about their complex relationship in modern conditions. Global risks include the coronovirus pandemic: risk has become a global hazard from which future risks and crises originate. The reflexivity of the unknown and the methodological cosmopolitanism – point to a global change in the society in the 21st century, whose priority is security. Cosmopolitanism is expressed in social delocalization, which includes three dimensions: spatial, temporal, and social. Risks have symbolic and existential content and include life guidelines, traditions and cultural norms. The coronavirus was a challenge to the intellectual sphere of society. The author focuses on the transformation of risks in the field of science and education. Self-isolation and social distance initiate the active introduction of distance education and media education. Attempts are being made to identify possible risks resulting from the introduction of media technologies in the educational system. The concept of the multiplicity of interpretations of riskogenics allows us to understand the prospects for the transformation of the global risk society in a pandemic situation.Alternate : Ð’ статье рассматриваются ситуация, связанная с пандемией коронавируса в мировом обществе риска, и ее возможные последствия для социокультурных процессов. Трудность в социально-философском анализе риска заключается в том, что риск находится между субъективным и объективным, между рациональным и иррациональным, между социальным и экзистенциальным. Логика однозначности уступает место логике многозначности, которая находит свое выражение в соединении общества риска с космополитизмом. Актуализируется концепция У. Бека о космополитическом повороте современной цивилизации, это раскрывается через понятия «опасность», «социальное неравенство» и через экзистенциалы «страх», «неуверенность», которые свидетельствуют о социальной уязвимости современного общества. Речь идет о необходимости различения риска и опасности, о их сложной взаимосвязи в современных условиях. К глобальным рискам относится пандемия коронавируса: риск стал глобальной опасностью, из которой берут начало будущие риски и кризисы. Рефлексивность неизвестного и методологический космополитизм мополитизм выражается в социальной делокализации, которая включает три измерения: пространств µÐ½Ð½Ð¾Ðµ, темпоральное и социальное. Риски обладают символическим и экзистенциальным содержанием и включают жизненные ориентиры, традиции и нормы культуры. Коронавирус явился вызовом интеллектуальной сфере общества. Автор акцентирует внимание на трансформации рисков в области науки и образования. Самоизоляция и социальная дистанция инициируют активное внедрение дистанционного образования и медиаобразования. Предпринимаются попытки выявления возможных рисков в результате внедрения медиатехнологий в образовательную систему. Представление о множественности трактовок рискогенности позволяет осмыслить перспективы трансформации мирового общества риска в ситуации пандемии.

Transnational lived citizenship turns local: Covid-19 and Eritrean and Ethiopian diaspora in Nairobi

This paper analyses how migrant community practices of transnational lived citizenship were altered by both, COVID-19 and the policy response from the Kenyan government. It is based on interviews with members of the Eritrean and Ethiopian diaspora residing in Nairobi. The paper demonstrates how policies introduced because of the pandemic caused migrant communities to lose local and remittance income. More than the loss of material resources, however, they were impacted by the elimination of social spaces that enable diaspora lives. These two dynamics have intensified a trend that may have been present before the pandemic, a local turn of transnational lived citizenship. By focusing on lived experiences and how they have been re-assessed during the pandemic, the paper argues that transnational lived citizenship is always in flux and can easily become reconfigured as more localized practices. The concept of transnational lived citizenship is demonstrated to be a useful lens for analysing shifting migrant livelihoods and belonging.