A Taste for the Other: Cosmopolitanism, Sense Work, and the Consumption of Difference

The concept of cosmopolitanism offers pathways for reframing core dimensions of the character and meaning of translocal consumption. An ancient philosophical idea once again at the center of innovations in social and cultural theory, cosmopolitanism relates to forms and practices of belonging and ethical solidarities reaching beyond local and national frames. Though its recommendations for social sciences are wide-ranging and broad (Beck and Sznaider 2006; Delanty 2009), more specifically, cosmopolitanism affords numerous points of innovation for social scientific studies of taste around the ethical interpretation and meaning of the global contexts of consumption practices. To appreciate the impact of cosmopolitanism within

studies of taste, we need first to briefly revisit some recent history in the connected fields of studies of taste and consumption.