Page - 55 - in Limina - Grazer theologische Perspektiven, Volume 2:1

55 | www.limina-graz.eu cosmopolitanism as well (Appiah 2019). The “local” reasserts itself not in opposition to a more universal sense, but rather insists on a “both-and” approach instead of the “either-or” approach of a nationalistic populism. This development of new understandings of the local tries to bring a level of concreteness and relatedness to these groups who did not find expres- sions of themselves in more universalizing, abstract proposals of identity. “Local” in the sense in which it is being proposed here is not univocal in the same way “global” may be construed. “Global” can be understood as something overarching, whose horizons stretch far beyond those within immediate purview. “Local” is not to be understood as the dialectical op- posite of the “global.” Like other postcolonial thinking, it finds an empha- sis on place rather than the pervasive paradigm of time that pervades colo- nial thinking. “Local” here can denote a series of sites: ̟ Sites of resistance, where concrete communities are bound to- gether; ̟ Sites of resilience, or places a beleaguered community returns to in order to regain the strength it needs to endure continuing states of dehumanization; ̟ Sites in the diaspora, where immigrant and displaced communities recover a sense of place even as they are being denied a place where they now find themselves; ̟ Sites of refuge from the alien gaze, where communities recreate their emic centers in the face of a hostile etic imposition by outside hegemonic forces. These senses of the local in contrast to the global give a clue to how people form identities that give expression to who they are in a positive fashion, and not simply in reaction to feelings of insecurity, fear, and threat of anni- hilation. To give a bit more concreteness to this, a Carnegie Institute study of how immigrant communities maintain their humanity in the maelstrom of conurbations that throw together people of all different cultures and lan- guages provides interesting insights. Canadian philosopher Michael Igna- tieff explored how immigrant groups in seven megacities around the world practiced what was referred to above as a “vernacular cosmopolitanism,” robert J. schreiter | Globalization and Plural theologies The immediate, the concrete, the near-at-hand is an essential part of cosmopolitanism.