Aesthetic cosmopolitanism: The force of the fold in diasporic intimacy

Abstract

The contemporary migration experience is mobile, fragmented and mediated, creating a new diasporic interface that interplays the three threads of media, culture and art. However, studies of transnationalism within media, culture and art scholarship continue to collapse into binary models, ultimately streamlining the complex cultural translations that occur in this interface. This essay argues that the notion of aesthetic cosmopolitanism allows for a more rigorous account of the diasporic interface, keeping alive the kinetic element that permeates transnational cultural production.