More than putting on a performance in commercial homes: merging family practices and critical hospitality studies

Julie Seymour

doi:10.1080/11745398.2015.1078247

Abstract

Critical hospitality studies and family studies have shown a developing theoretical convergence predicated by the ‘social turn’ in the study of hospitality. Recent hospitality research on ‘Commercial Homes’ has drawn strongly on Goffman's concept of performance to examine both guest and host behaviours. In contrast, this article introduces the family studies concept of ‘displaying families’. This concept emphasises the family practices of host families as well as the commercial practices privileged in studies of hospitality. It also widens the often individualised focus on the (adult) host(s) to one that incorporates the host family. Drawing on empirical evidence, it appears that, for the hosts, displaying families in Commercial Homes is a complex and, apparently paradoxical, mix of presentation and reticence – the family has to be highly visible but not publicly privileged over guests. The inclusion of the concept of display will serve to illuminate further the arenas where family, commercial and hospitality practices intersect.

Highlights

In Lashley’s (2000) opening chapter for the seminal volume In Search of Hospitality he itemizes the three domains of hospitality; these are the social, private and commercial
While this article has focused on the families which service leisure and hospitality, the concept is applicable to the new whole family approach to the study of hospitality and can be used to further interrogate the everyday production of families that occurs while they are at leisure
In the new three-way diagram, the Private circle illustrates the activities of family practices, that is the doing and displaying of family which occurs in Commercial Home and non-host families alike

Summary

Introduction

In Lashley’s (2000) opening chapter for the seminal volume In Search of Hospitality he itemizes the three domains of hospitality; these are the social, private and commercial. It will review the prevalent use of Goffman’s concept of performance in recent hospitality studies on Commercial Homes and propose that, to this, could be added the new concept of family display (Finch 2007).

Results

Conclusion