Dominated Cosmopolitanism: Consumer Habitus Dynamics among Low-Resource Migrants

Abstract

Cosmopolitanism is often cast as an elite cultural orientation and as a privileged disposition to an increasingly globalized marketplace, instigated by, and lived through, mobility. But how does cosmopolitanism evolve among consumers at intersectional subordinate positions of power? This article analyses the emergence of cosmopolitanism through a 9-year longitudinal extended case study of female migrants with low levels of resources. Through the deployment of a Bourdieusian framework cosmopolitanism is theorized to evolve through processes set in motion by the experience of mismatch and subsequent alignment between new social contexts and existing socialized dispositions (hysteresis). The experience of hysteresis caused by mobility can lead to a habitus with traits of cosmopolitanism. The emergence of a cosmopolitan habitus can result in a sense of emancipation, but it also engenders new subordinate positions within intersectional systems of power. The outcome of this process is labelled Dominated Cosmopolitanism, representing a more nuanced version of cosmopolitanism that incorporates various systems of power. The analysis has implications for acculturation studies in consumption contexts characterized by low resource endowments and provides new insights into the processual nature of the constitution of social systems of power.