Culture notes: Globally challenged

Catherine Fieschi looks forward to an era of cosmopolitanism

The World Today Updated 8 February 2021 2 minute READ

Catherine Fieschi

Director, Counterpoint

As I never tired of saying while I was in charge of a ‘global’ policy institute: despite what some people may think, ‘global’ is not just a swankier word for ‘transnational’. You could be a global citizen and never leave the East End of London; just as a global project could focus entirely on a Paris banlieue.

The whole point of ‘global’ was not that you went out into the world (although you might), but rather that, regardless of whether or not you did, the world would come to you, through the diversity of your neighbourhood, the languages spoken in your school, or the production of Chinese steel that put local plants out of business.

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