Abstract
This article examines the hospitality practices of pro-migrant civil society organisations in Istanbul. Drawing from qualitative interviews, we focus on intersecting gendered, professionalised and faith-based aspects of pro-migrant activities and explore the ways that politically and morally charged ambivalences of hospitality practices are articulated and negotiated. Moreover, by contextualising Turkey’s religious and geopolitical particularity as a gatekeeper of Europe, we work with Derrida’s concept of plural laws to investigate hospitality practices towards refugees in Istanbul. Civil actors’ intentions and attempts to be good citizens, Muslims, and care providers expose the intimate aspects of hospitality – a segue into discourses of displaced subjects’ (gendered) deservingness. By portraying how macro–micro, global–local and public–private relations condition hospitality practices, we observe how globalisation is lived intimately, influencing perceptions of deservingness and the prioritisation of displaced subjects’ needs.
Highlights
This article examines the hospitality practices of pro-migrant civil society organisations in Istanbul
As Turkish civil society workers respond to demands for gender-matched services, deeming Syrian women to be more willing to integrate or feeling their Islamic faith to be deepened through their work with refugees, we find new constellations of ‘intimate citizenship’ (Plummer, 2003)
We have examined how and in what ways the politically and morally charged ambivalences of hospitality practices are articulated and negotiated, focusing on intersecting gendered, professionalised and faith-based aspects of pro-migrant activities in different civil society organisations in Istanbul
Summary
This article examines the hospitality practices of pro-migrant civil society organisations in Istanbul. Drawing from qualitative interviews, we focus on intersecting gendered, professionalised and faith-based aspects of pro-migrant activities and explore the ways that politically and morally charged ambivalences of hospitality practices are articulated and negotiated. We examine a less studied side of global mobility, namely, hospitality, by way of a focus on the shifting meanings and conditions of hospitality practices among civil society organisations in Turkey (Istanbul). By considering the political consequences of the failed 2016 coup attempt in Turkey, South–South (Syria-to-Turkey) migration particularities, and Turkey’s role as the gatekeeper of Europe, we examine how Southern-led responses can work alongside, be shaped by or explicitly challenge Northern-led responses to displacement.
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