Related Experiment Video
Updated: Apr 7, 2026

Virtual Hand with Ambiguous Movement between the Self and Other Origin: Sense of Ownership and 'Other-Produced' Agency
Published on: October 28, 2020
Cosmopolitics: towards a new articulation of politics, science and critique
1School of Social Science, Singapore Management University.
Abstract:
This paper explores how Ulrich Beck's world-risk-society theory (WRST) and Bruno Latour's Actor-Network Theory (ANT) can be combined to advance a theory of cosmopolitics. On the one hand, WRST helps to examine 'cosmopolitan politics', how actors try to inject cosmopolitanism into existing political practices and institutions anchored in the logic of nationalism. On the other hand, ANT sheds light on 'cosmological politics', how scientists participate in the construction of reality as a reference point for political struggles. By combining the WRST and ANT perspectives, it becomes possible to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of cosmopolitics that takes into account both political and ontological dimensions. The proposed synthesis of WRST and ANT also calls for a renewal of critical theory by making social scientists aware of their performative involvement in cosmopolitics. This renewal prompts social scientists to explore how they can pragmatically support certain ideals of cosmopolitics through continuous dialogues with their objects of study, actors who inhabit different nations and different cosmoses.
Related Concept Videos
The Role of Culture
Scientific Nature of Social Psychology
Social Foundations of Self IV: Self in Digital Communication
Humanistic Psychology
This approach...
Impression Management Techniques I: Managing Appearances
The Sense of Self: Reflected Self-Appraisal and Social Comparison

