The Erasure of Race: Cosmopolitanism and the Illusion of Kantian Hospitality

What is it about?

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. 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. And finally the article considers the extent to which modern cosmopolitans have inherited the the dualism of Kant's work.

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Why is it important?

Debates initiated on the peripheries of philosophy, law and anthropology in the 1990s have led the way in highlighting the racism in Kant's work. 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. The article also draws attention to the inadvertently complicit role of second-generation cosmopolitans in the erasure of race from the study of Kant, a point often obscured in discourse on cosmopolitanism.