The Looming Shadows of the Walls. Is a Cosmopolitan Europe still Possible?

Abstract

In a Europe of many lights and shadows, cosmopolitan sociology provides a valid theoretical framework to distinguish one from the other. If cosmopolitan sociology is an attempt to understand how individuals, social groups and institutions deal with the challenges of ever more transnational social processes, then the European issue can be fully inserted within such an approach. From this point of view, following the austerity policies and recent events involving Syrian refugees and the attack by Daesh activists at the heart of Europe, sociology has started to enquire whether a cosmopolitan Europe is still possible. Conversaly, in the history of Europe and in its Constitutional Treaties, traces of cosmopolitanism are to be found almost everywhere. In this context, our study examines the crisis pervading Europe today and highlights the standing back to a certain extent of cosmopolitan sociology. At the same time, it stresses the hope that a change of direction will occur and the opportunity grasped of reflecting more deeply on the founding principles of cosmopolitan Europe.