THE TOURIST AND THE MIGRANT – TWO FACES OF THE 21ST CENTURY COSMOPOLITANISM

Abstract

It is no big secret that in our world of great economic inequalities, belonging to some
political communities is just more valuable than belonging to others. And this divide is exactly
what differentiates contemporary “unwoken” cosmopolitans into two categories – the tourist
and the migrant. In a certain way, both of those ideal figures embody cosmopolitan values of
earlier times, as they are “transgressing” the political borders of communities. Although both
the tourist and the migrant with their transgressions are helping the intercommunal exchange
and understanding between the peoples, their societal acceptance is wildly different. While
tourists are rarely unwelcomed, mainly because they do not interact profoundly with domestic
population as they intend to return to their point of origin, migrants with their wish for “deeper
connections” are viewed with suspicion, if not outright hatred. And this difference strongly
puts into question the principle of hospitality, which is, following the work of Immanuel
Kant, considered a basic building block of modern cosmopolitan theory. Finally, this paper
will try to make case that for the true cosmopolitan ideals to take hold, there is a need for a
reformulation of the current idea of hospitality, from the one based on the economy towards
the one based on humanistic ideals. And this need is especially more pressing considering the
turn of events provoked by the global pandemic, which are strengthening and slowly closing
the borders between our countries and each other.