Żywe strefy wyobraźni. Przyjmowanie gości jako praktyka oporu

Abstract

This article concerns “living zones of the imagination”—areas of social life in which intensive “interpretive labor” is underway. Thanks to these zones, it is possible to engage in universally accepted exercises that enable a person to “see the world through the eyes of another person” and that yet do not disturb the current socio-cultural order. They provide an important basis for understanding among people, for harmonizing meanings in the sphere of social realities, and for integration that goes beyond certain permanent boundaries and hierarchies. The basic aim of the article is to prove that hospitality, understood as a value in Polish culture, could contribute to a considerable degree to the creation of such zones. The author analyzes the zones’ character, function, and meaning, paying attention to how they resist the expansion of bureaucratic ways of organizing social life. He also draws attention to the influence that an axio-normative pattern could havewithin specific models of behavior and cultural practices.