Globalization, Reflexive Utopianism, and the Cosmopolitan Social Imaginary

Abstract

Utopia and globalization are intrinsically linked. The classical definition of utopia considers it to be both no place (outopia) and good place (eutopia) (Kumar, 1991, p. 1). But utopia is more than an alternative society. More importantly, as Ernst Bloch recognized, utopia conveys a powerful impulse or drive that is simultaneously critical of present sociopolitical realities and anticipatory of positive alternative futures. It is a basic human aspiration, the longing and hope for a better world that, although emerging out of the historical past and present, is not yet (Bloch, 1986). While the term ‘utopia’ originated in the West — coined by Sir Thomas More with his combination of the two Greek words — it subsequently has been dispersed throughout the world by means of a manifold of social, political, economic, and cultural interactions on a global scale. It is notable that More’s vision of utopia is presented through a tale of world exploration in which the traveller-narrator, Raphael Hythloday, discovers unknown (from a European perspective) lands, seeks out new peoples, and brings the Old World into contact with the New World (More, 1965). Utopia thus connotes the desire to transgress borders and to encounter other lands and peoples, to connect together otherwise disparate places and identities across the globe. In this way utopia and globalization are born together.