Is London open? Mediating and ordering cosmopolitanism in crisis

This article analyses cosmopolitan imagination and ambivalent morality at times of urban crisis. It focuses on #LondonIsOpen – the city’s media campaign in response to the nation’s Brexit vote. In this case, cosmopolitanism’s discursive tools – especially the ideals of the Open city and hospitality – are mobilised to summon a range of actors in defence of the city. The article analyses the mediation of cosmopolitanism in a campaign film and in Londoners’ online and offline responses to it. These responses reveal #LondonIsOpen as a compelling example of cosmopolitan imagination, but also of cosmopolitanism’s moral fragility in the neoliberal city. As shown, urban dwellers overwhelmingly embrace the cosmopolitan value of openness. Yet, their visions are divided between neoliberal cosmopolitanism and vernacular cosmopolitanism. By analysing the moral space of mediated cosmopolitanism, I argue that, unlike the nation, representational struggles in the city increasingly take place within, rather than against, cosmopolitanism.