Australia's Future in the Region and the World: A Manifesto for a Spiritually Engaged Critical Cosmopolitanism.

Kang, Chris (2008). Australia's Future in the Region and the World: A Manifesto for a Spiritually Engaged Critical Cosmopolitanism.. Australia 2020 Summit Collaborative Website.


Title Australia's Future in the Region and the World: A Manifesto for a Spiritually Engaged Critical Cosmopolitanism.
Abstract/Summary In this paper, I argue that Australia’s future in a rapidly changing region and world lies in seeking to actualize its potential as a ‘transformative global citizen’. My argument rests on three substantiating reasons. First, both the contending “power image” and “power capabilities” approaches fail in acknowledging the socially and epistemically constructed nature of reality (Ungerer 2008: 26). These approaches assume ‘Australia’, ‘power’ and ‘capabilities’ as static ontological givens, ignoring their process-like, dynamically constructed and malleable nature interweaving language, worldviews, culture, norms, geography, ecology, interactions, rationality and consciousness. This socially constructed nature of power and capabilities implies that the field remains open for Australia to deconstruct its past and what has not worked historically with simultaneous reconstruction of a fresh future consonant with a transformative vision of a cosmopolitan future. Second, with successive waves of migration from Europe across to Asia, Middle East, and more recently Africa into the Dreamtime of Indigenous peoples, Australia has become a cosmopolitan garden of many floral varieties potentially to be conjoined into diverse garlands of exquisite beauty that can renew and inspire the world. Third, becoming a ‘transformative global citizen’ is based on identifying and valorizing the natural resource embedded within Australia’s cosmopolitan sociopolity that calls itself to emergence. It takes a shift and expansion in mindset accompanied by a deep celebration of multilinguality, multicivilizationality, multirationality so as to harness the power of integral cosmopolitanism in the service of creative, transformative global citizenship.
Keyword Australia - foreign relations
international relations
spirituality
cosmopolitanism
Publisher Australia 2020 Summit Collaborative Website
Date 2008-04-19
Research Fields, Courses and Disciplines 16 Studies in Human Society
1606 Political Science
160607 International Relations
Author Kang, Chris

Document type: Generic Document
Collection: School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics Publications
 
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Created: Mon, 23 Feb 2009, 15:48:09 EST by Dr Chris Kang on behalf of School of History, Philosophy, Religion & Classics