Le voyage itinérant, de l’utopie cosmopolite à l’épreuve du rite des hospitalités

The question raised by this article is: how a cosmopolitan individual, from the reflective gesture of experiencing himself in the gaze of the other, can grasp and represent his belonging to a common humanity. We propose that cosmopolitan socialization be intimately linked to the nature of the host group in which the immersion takes place. However, this encounter cannot be made with humanity in general, but it takes shape in the interrelationship between two or more specific cultural entities. What opens us to others questions: what kind of otherness are we talking about? For whom? Why? In which purpose? As a result, the feeling of belonging to a common humanity, if it is shared, at least to some extent, by each cosmopolitan individual, is to be understood from a utopian point of view. If cosmopolitan socialization in backpacker enclaves or academic exchanges is carried out in the logic of integration mainly directed towards a cosmopolitan Western community, then another form of socialization through the experience of itinerancy would be possible. The latter would be immersed in local cultures, it would be ephemeral, random and heterogeneous and mainly carried out in the rite of hospitalities, and may thus represent a different form of elaboration of cosmopolitan feeling. Indeed, this would not be elaborated in the tension between two models (integration), but in a chain reaction of multiple models, which by serendipities, work one another, in multiple directions, without being able to stabilized, opening to the diversity of humanity. If we speak here of cosmopolitan socialization, it would rather be understood on the anthropological level than on an ethnological one.