Friction and Fragility in Encountering Cultural Difference: Why Global South Fulbright Students Withdraw From Cosmopolitanism in the United States

Abstract

Scholars have extensively written about how convivial cross-cultural encounters, driven by global mobility, underpin mutual understanding and cosmopolitan aspirations. However, little attention has been paid to encounters that cause friction or require considerable effort to bridge differences. This paper centres on conflictual and negative experiences of encountering cultural diversity through the lens of Global South Fulbright students in the Boston area of the United States. As one of the most prestigious educational and cultural exchange programmes in the United States, the Fulbright Program advocates for cultural diplomacy, and its participants are regarded as cultural ambassadors to enhance cross-cultural understandings. By examining the unfavourable experiences of these cosmopolitan-oriented students, I develop a framework to analyse how the friction and fragility of cosmopolitanism are produced through interpersonal, structural and circumstantial causes, leading to their withdrawal from cosmopolitanism. This framework helps analyse challenges to cosmopolitanism in a post-pandemic world marked by growing xenophobia and provincialism.