Cosmopolitanization of the Body: Kazuo’s Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go

Abstract

The concept of cosmopolitanization, introduced by German sociologist Ulrich Beck, is intended to represent a global inequality. It is a by-product of global capitalism, which is different from an ideal cosmopolitanism attempting to convey that “we are all connected”. When people live in an intertwined, contradictory and complex “risk society”, those who are excluded from the world’s political system, their fates are still closely linked. The study is going to explore the cosmopolitization of the body of clones in Ishiguro’s Never Let me Go, revealing a relationship of bodily inequality, a physical exploitation by one group over another, in order to widen the discussion scope of identity dilemma of those who cannot be generalized to a certain group.