CeMoRe Seminar with Heidrun Friese : The Limits of Hospitality
Date: 6 May 2010 Time: 4.00 - 6.00pm
Venue: Institute for Advanced Studies MR2/3
Seminar with Professor Heidrun Friese, Ruhr-University Bochum and European University Viadrina, Frankfurt/O. Germany (http://web.mac.com/hfriese), editor of Identities: Time, Difference and Boundaries (Vol.2 Making Sense of History, Berghahn Books), and The Moment: Time and Rupture in Modern Thought
The Limits of Hospitality. Undocumented Migration and the Local Arena One of the most vital questions of our time is how to hospitably welcome migrants, exiled and refugees. Since the late 1990's the Mediterranean has become a powerful symbol of European frontiers and policies trying to limit the entrance of undocumented migrants and asylum seekers. Based on multi-sited fieldwork in Sicily and Tunesia, the paper envisions the various spaces, local actors and areas of conflicts that are articulated by the arrival of undocumented migrants on their routes to Europe. Historically, hospitality has been a religious and ethical duty, a (sacred) demand of charity, generosity and responsibility. With the development of the modern nation-state, such duties have been inscribed into the procedures of organized, public solidarity and into the national and international legal system that order citizenship, (political) membership and the precarious status assigned to 'aliens' that shape, govern and limit the hospitable welcome of an Other. At the same time, concepts of hospitality gained an immense relevance for ongoing debates on the freedom of movement and are currently been discussed in philosophical/political debates on 'unconditional hospitality', renewed forms of cosmopolitism, global justice and the rights of others which aim at troubling the conventional congruence of citizenship, territory and belonging. Being the island of Lampedusa the example, the paper engages with the powerful politics of hospitality and its inherent limits, conflicts and tensions.Contact:
Who can attend: Anyone
Further information
Associated staff: Javier Caletrío
Organising departments and research centres: Centre for Mobilities Research (CeMoRe), Mobilities.Lab, Sociology
Keywords: Hospitality, Mediterranean, Migrants, Migration, Mobilities, Sociology
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