Appiah Appiah Cosmopolitanism

The Internet is playing a very important role in the evolution of digital technology, but although it has seen remarkable growth over the last few years, its dispersion remains highly asymmetric. It is widely believed that the so called information age will bring radical change and improvement, and countries all over the world are busy with constructing the necessary infrastructure, the "information superhighways," in order to meet the challenges of the information society of the twenty-first century. Kwame Anthony Appiah’s essay “Making Conversation” tell us about human’s conversation

Novelist Chimamanda Adichie brings into consideration to Keim discussion, by emphasizing the connection between a “single story” and “stereotypes” regarding the subject of Africa. One of the dangers Adichie includes in her discussion are individuals being denied the opportunity to tell their story. Adichie draws similarities to Keim when discussing her own personal journey to find her authentic cultural voice, and she emphasizes the many misunderstanding that society, including herself, have made. Adichie admits to not only facing stereotypes, but addresses her own opinion regarding the topic. Adichie admits that as a child, she had initial biases regarding a servant that was employed by her family. According her explanation, she believed that the capability of someone “the servants family” coming from a certain background, made them incapable of such artistry. The same misconceptions can be seen in present day society, we often are prejudiced on who or what can be cultured.

Prior to diving into the thoughts and explanations of Appiah, one must become aware that the commonplace definition of Cosmopolitanism is, “belonging to all the world; not limited to just one part of the world.” (dictionary.com) With that being said, the author of Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers, defines the idea of cosmopolitanism as this: The success of international exchange is a product of the acknowledgment of different cultures and their viewpoints.

“‘Why do you say Africa instead of just saying the country you mean?’…‘You don’t know America. You say Senegal and American people, they say, Where is that...’” (Adichie 15).

Nwoye Struggles with his identity and it has led him to embrace a new culture, which has Basically saved him, and shows the good effects colonialism can have on people.

By going back to one’s roots, the future of developing countries resided in the “development of Africa is one of the most constructive and universally helpful missions” (Locke, 6). This direction was a form of modernization that was an improvement of relationships between African Americans and other races.

For my ethnographic interview, I choose to interview a gentleman who I recently met at the church that I attend. For confidentiality reasons, I will refer to him as James Madison. The main focus of this ethnographic interview is to engage, explore and listen to the interviewee’s personal story. As defined in Culturally Competent Practice, by Doman Lum, cultural identity development theory is influenced at various stages of life. It is part of the growth of knowledge that a person is impacted. Although James Madison is proud that he is from Ghana, Africa, his cultural identity has changed drastically due to the knowledge that has made him grow into “a mature mindset that is like no other person in Ghana” as he describes.

It is essential to note that the term African Diaspora does not describe any single event, group of people or set of customs. It represents a current state of being for many citizens of the world and provides context for understanding the social structures and intercultural relationships of the world we live in today. Collin Palmer provides great insight into the context of diaspora. He writes that there have been several movements, massive migrations of people, throughout history. There is no single “diasporic movement or monolithic diasporic community” to be studied, but rather a confluence of people, events and ideologies that span thousands of years, across every continent. Each period of movement, each diasporic stream, happened for different reasons. Palmer’s approach to the African Diaspora begins with a look nearly 100,000 years into the past. He identifies five major streams, with the first African diaspora that occurred as a

Chimamanda Adichie is an author from Nigeria, a major country in Africa. She is an exceedingly well-known author from her writings on immigration, feminism, and the African experience in America. She has given a variety of Ted talks, speeches, and has done interviews on immigration, feminism, and the African experience in America. In her writings, most noticeably “My Mother, the Crazy African,” she talks about the experience of immigrants in America and through a lens which relates to issues one from all walks of life can understand. Her book shows a growing divide between the understanding of “American Culture” and other cultures from around the world, in this book, most specifically Nigeria in this case. The analysis in this essay will take place through examining similar work as well as her interviews and speeches.

The article unfolded with the author, Kwame Appiah, starting the essay with a description of a palace in Ghana. His description depicts a place full of tradition, color and custom. While going into details about the royal area, he later switches and starts depicting another set of people that were clothed in western suits, carrying around cell phones and having business meetings. Clearly, just from the beginning along it is obvious that the place the author was describing had a mixture of tradition and modernized people with modern technology

“Ghana’s history is a metaphor for what occurred in the immediate aftermath of independence in Africa,” is a quote by Kofi Awoonor, Ghana’s leading literary figure and one of Africa’s most acclaimed authors. Three of his poems illustrate the hardships and trials that the Africans faced after their claim of independence from Britain. As said by Awoonor himself, “...high hopes were crushed by the greed, corruption, and lust for power…”. The author uses multiple literary devices as a way to emphasize the adversities they faced. Kofi Awoonor symbolizes the downfall of Ghana after independence through the use of theme, mood, and symbolism in his Three Poems.

The author’s effort to display oral literature, including expressing Ghanaian English speaking and non-English speaking society, in her work reflects her own persona as a contemporary writer resembling the African oral traditions and art work. “Shall I go to Cape Coast, or to Elmina I don’t know, I can’t tell. I don’t know, I can’t tell,” (Aidoo) Language, mainly English, is promoted to throughly capture various backgrounds and events of the play. Aidoo tries to distinguish Eulalie’s American-English speech that instantly alienates her from the rest of the characters. The author also quite succeeds in reflecting Ato’s educated language with a hint of lecturing that proves he has been indeed abroad, as oppose to his Ghanaian family. It crucially exposes the impact of colonialism on communication between Africans with distinctive educational and social situations, as for instance, the married couple’s complexed struggle to not only fully accept their cultural differences but also keep and hold onto their own identities. Aidoo also catches the inflections and outcomes of oral literature by using simple songs, traditional proverbs and imagery, such as the interesting ones in the dialogue between the two old Ghanaian women. “1st W.:But you know, my sister, That my name is Lonesome. I

The arrival of the British and their implementation of Christianity, European laws and government brings great conflict to the way of life and culture of the Igbo people. Okonkwo and Nwoye are both affected by colonization but their response differs as a result of their separate individualities and masculinities. Achebe argues that when faced with outside influences that contests one’s morals, traditions and beliefs, different reactions can occur between individuals in the form of a crisis of identity, leading to one’s personal identity ultimately being compromised or discovered.

It is unbelievable to think that an action of what a person does in the present, can either lead to nothing or it can become a catastrophe event. In Things Fall Apart, Achebe writes about the Nigerian culture through the events that happen to the main character which is Okonkowo. In Cosmopolitism, Appiah writes about the different values, morals, and cultures people in the world have and how people can live together despite having differences. The event that could have had a different outcome was when the Abmae elders decided to execute the white missionary man and later on the group of white people massacred the Abmae village. If the characters in the event were more cosmopolitan with the concept of understanding each other and uncalled-for punishment, then the event could have been a different outcome. When one applies Appiah’s idea of understanding each other and uncalled-for punishment in Cosmopolitism to the event in Things Fall Apart, the event changes to when the elders would not have executed the white missionary man and therefore there would be no massacre from the group of white people.

One remarkable observation from her first extract is when Noxolo (2009) opines that “Ghanaians make it very clear, though not in an unfriendly way, that this is not your home, not permanently anyway… I have always taken the unity of all Black people as self-evident but I have found it disturbing sometimes that on the whole Ghanaians do not” (p.58). Personally, I got amazed to read this because a Ghanaian myself, we as a country in Africa is one of the few countries that has enviable track record of political stability with its attendant hospitality, sociability and free society. Noxolo being black like Ghanaians themselves to depict Ghanaians in such light is worrisome because even whites are accorded the same hospitality and how much same black colour as Noxolo. For me this brings back to multiple identities that a researcher has to struggle with, and coupled with the inherent power relation between Noxolo and the community in which she found herself. Noxolo also examines materiality in her work. According to her and regarding postcolonial geography, at least three distinguishable ways of understanding matter is identified. These she labels as the "lived realities of economic inequality, in terms of the material production of power and in terms of tangible aspects of cultural and geographical practice" (Noxolo, 2009, 60).