The Erasure of Race: Cosmopolitanism and the Illusion of Kantian Hospitality
| Author | J. K. Gani |
| Published date | 01 June 2017 |
| Date | 01 June 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0305829817714064 |
| Subject Matter | Conference Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0305829817714064
Millennium: Journal of
International Studies
2017, Vol. 45(3) 425 –446
© The Author(s) 2017
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0305829817714064
journals.sagepub.com/home/mil
The Erasure of Race:
Cosmopolitanism and the
Illusion of Kantian Hospitality
J. K. Gani
University of St Andrews, UK
Abstract
This article explores three key arguments: Firstly, it seeks to demonstrate the contradictions
and limits within Kantian hospitality, and its links to colonialism and practices of racialisation. The
acclaimed universalism of Kant’s law of hospitality forecloses a discussion of its dualism, and erases the
historical, racist context in which it was conceived. The prioritization of concept over conception allows
Kant’s theory on race to be obscured from official discourse and framing of policies while it still
courses through inherited perceptions and theories. Secondly, in making my case, I will be applying
the notion of coloniality, coined by Aníbal Quijano and later developed by Walter Mignolo, to the
existing but small body of critical discourse on Kant and race. Debates initiated on the peripheries
of philosophy, law and anthropology in the 1990s have led the way in this regard. However, given
the time that has elapsed, it is notable that their work has received little scrutiny in political theory
and International Relations theory, and thus warrants renewed attention. I argue that the notion
of coloniality provides a useful lens through which to do so, and a vehicle through which to apply
those excavations to a contemporary context. Finally, the article explores the extent to which
Kantian thought constitutes ‘modern’ cosmopolitanism, and draws attention to the inadvertently
complicit role of second-generation cosmopolitans in the erasure of race from the study of Kant.
The relationship between the collective erasure of race and racism in academia and European
practice towards refugees and immigrants is briefly considered.
Keywords
Kant, race, hospitality
Introduction
The European Union’s response to the refugee crisis and the current political malaise of
the so-called ‘West’ makes it imperative to (re)assess theories of hospitality and the com-
placency of cosmopolitanism. The rise of xenophobia, white supremacist extremism,
Corresponding author:
J. K. Gani, University of St Andrews, Arts Building, The Scores, St Andrews, KY16 9AX, UK.
Email: jkng@st-andrews.ac.uk
714064MIL0010.1177/0305829817714064Millennium: Journal of International StudiesGani
research-article2017
Conference Article
426 Millennium: Journal of International Studies 45(3)
1. The Economist, ‘Liberalism after Brexit, The Politics of Anger’, 2 July 2016. Available
at: http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21701478-triumph-brexit-campaign-warning-
liberal-international-order-politics. Last accessed March 15, 2017; Stephen Kinzer, ‘The
Enlightenment Had a Good Run’, The Boston Globe, 23 December 2016. Available at: https://
www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/12/22/kinzer-xml/5EGz2XG3Txum3eslWzSO3N/
story.html. Last accessed March 15, 2017; Andrew Graham, ‘Britain’s Values Were Founded
in Europe – How Can We Leave?’, The Guardian, 1 April 2016. Available at: https://www.
theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/01/values-founded-europe-how-can-we-leave-
law-freedom-religion. Last accessed March 15, 2017; Bernard-Henri Levy, ‘Brexit Marks
a Victory of Demagoguery Over Democracy’, The Haaretz, 26 June 2016. Available at:
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.727220. Last accessed March 15, 2017; Pinkaj Mishra,
‘Welcome to the Age of Anger’, The Guardian, 8 December 2016. Available at: https://www.
theguardian.com/politics/2016/dec/08/welcome-age-anger-brexit-trump. Last accessed 15
March 2017.
2. Writing in 2002, Cavallar states ‘there is virtually no literature on international hospital-
ity, in spite of more recent enthusiasm about Kant’s cosmopolitan right’. Georg Cavallar,
The Rights of Strangers: Theories of International Hospitality, the Global Community and
Political Justice since Vitoria (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2002), 5. Since then the dearth
has partially been addressed through works by Gideon Baker, Cavallar himself, Dan Bulley
and Seyla Benhabib.
3. Gideon Baker makes this case more fully in his edited volume: Gideon Baker, ed., Hospitality
and World Politics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 1–2.
far-right politicians in Europe and North America, and the apparently shocking result of
‘Brexit’, have been portrayed as a worrying retreat from a previously taken-for-granted
progressive trajectory in world politics. Indeed, Brexit (that is, the voluntary self-exclu-
sion of the United Kingdom from an institution that prides itself on its soft power and
attractiveness of membership) has produced something of a trauma in Britain and a state
of shock amongst the UK’s liberal partners. Both the rise of nationalism and the refugee
crisis have exposed a deep inhospitality in Europe that attacks the very essence of a self-
perceived cosmopolitan European identity. The close timings of these political develop-
ments have produced a sense of crisis in the EU project, as if we are witnessing a
watershed in global politics where years of moral and political progress are now in
retreat. Indeed, numerous commentators and politicians feared that the very principles of
the Enlightenment now seemed to be at stake.1 Is this in fact the case? Is the current
inhospitality of the West a departure from Enlightenment norms, or rather should it be
viewed as a logical continuity of Europe’s normative roots?
To understand those roots, one ought to return to early debates on hospitality. While
the term itself has largely fallen out of favour in academic and policy discourse,2
Gideon Baker makes the case for a deeper study of hospitality in International
Relations, particularly given that the notion of the stranger and his/her rights has been
so central to the discipline.3 Indeed, it used to be at the forefront of concerns in world
politics, as can be gleaned from the weight of thinking devoted to the stranger and the
‘other’ by the likes of Hobbes, Vattel, Vitoria, Pufendorf and not least Kant, who
To continue reading
Request your trial