Banal nationalism and global connections: The 23rd World Scout Jamboree as a site for cosmopolitan learning

The article explores the possibilities for cosmopolitan learning within a site such as the 23rd World Scout Jamboree. The approach is interdisciplinary, combining a theoretical conceptualisation of ‘cosmopolitan learning’ taken from Intercultural Education with a Cultural Studies focus on the representation of national and global cultures. This inspires an ethnographic exploration of the way that scout organisations and individual participants use artefacts, exhibitions and performances to communicate a sense of national/regional situatedness, world consciousness and interconnectivity. To decode cultural practices a three-layered framework has been employed, drawing on the three elements of national, global, and hybrid/fused culture.