Migration and the duty of hospitality: A genealogical sketch

Abstract

Hospitality is usually defined as a benevolent act towards strangers. The concept has seen a revival during the ‘European migrant crisis’, as a humanitarian duty inspired by ancient traditions and natural empathy. This narrative is unsatisfying because it depoliticizes hospitality, homogenizes its historical meanings and neglects to take seriously the features of hospitality that are incompatible with modern politics. In order to redefine the concept of hospitality for contemporary issues, it is necessary to understand precisely what hospitality has meant throughout its different historical and philosophical instantiations and what kind of political problems it was supposed to address. This article offers a genealogy of the various political features of hospitality and distinguishes four sources of it: the ancient relation of dependence, the politics of ritualized hospitality, the medieval and Christian roots of hospitality as charity and its emergence as a natural right. Then, I argue for a reconstruction of the political meaning of hospitality for contemporary migration issues, based on practical mobilizations of the concept. I define modern hospitality as the collective obligation to relieve distress caused by crossing borders.