Imagining a Cosmopolitized Europe: From the Study of the 'New' to the Discovery of the 'Unexpected'

Abstract

This paper is about the scholarly imagination of Europe. It addresses scholars who are involved in the analysis of contemporary politics within Europe and is concerned with the way in which they imagine their object of study because it is this imagination that preconfigures, which problems are perceived as problems and which questions are addressed in their analysis. Grounded in an engagement with the work of Ulrich Beck, especially his theories of ‘cosmopolitisation’, ‘global risk’ and ‘reflexive modernisation’, the paper sketches the contours of an ‘unconventional’ approach to 'Europe' that strifes for the exploration of the ‘unexpected’ rather than the discovery of the ‘new’.

Keywords: Ulrich Beck, cosmopolitization, Europe, the new, reflexive modernization, global risk