Anthropology Of Hospitality

However, hospitality offers a paradoxical situation (like language), since the inclusion of those who are welcomed in the sacred law of hospitality implies that others will be rejected. Julia Kristeva alerts readers to the dangers of "perverse hospitality", which takes advantage of the vulnerability of aliens to dispossess them. Hospitality reduces the tension in the process of host-guest encounters, producing a liminal zone that combines curiosity about others and fear of strangers.

Hospitality centres on the belief that strangers should be assisted and protected while traveling. However, some disagree: Anthony Pagden describes how the concept of hospitality was historically manipulated to legitimate the conquest of the Americas by imposing the right of free transit, which was conducive to the formation of the modern nation state.

This suggests that hospitality is a political institution, which can be ideologically deformed to oppress others.