Michel Agier - The Stranger as My Guest

1 Cover

2 Title Page The Stranger as My Guest A Critical Anthropology of Hospitality Michel Agier Translated by Helen Morrison polity

3 Copyright Page

4 Acknowledgements

5 Introduction: Hospitality When Least Expected Notes

6 1 Making the Stranger My Guest The conditions of unconditionality The elementary forms of hospitality From domestic hospitality to public hospitality Notes

7 2 Hospitality: The Challenge of the Present Encounters of a new type Hospitality: causes and effects The emergence of municipal hospitality From ghetto to migrant houses Hospitable municipality versus hostile state Notes

8 3 The Need for Cosmopolitics Cosmopolitanism today The principle of hospitality and cosmopolitics from a philosophical perspective Banal cosmopolitanism: an anthropological point of view Notes

9 4 Becoming a Stranger The death of Stavros or the birth of Joe Arness Three times a stranger The migrant poet and the spectre of the alien Notes

10 Conclusion Notes

11 Postscript: The Stranger after Covid-19 Note

12 Index

13 End User License Agreement

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Michel Agier

Translated by Helen Morrison

polity

Originally published in French as L’étranger qui vient. Repenser l’hospitalité © Éditions du Seuil, 2018

This English edition © 2021 by Polity Press

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All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-3988-8- hardback

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-3989-5- paperback

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Agier, Michel, 1953- author. | Morrison, Helen (Langauge translator), translator.

Title: The stranger as my guest : a critical anthropology of hospitality / Michel Agier ; translated by Helen Morrison.

Other titles: Étranger qui vient. English

Description: Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA, USA : Polity Press, 2021. | “Originally published in French as L’étranger qui vient. Repenser l’hospitalité, Edition du Seuil, 2018 .” | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “A well-argued case for a new hospitality policy that welcomes foreigners as guests rather than treating them as aliens or enemies”-- Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020028924 (print) | LCCN 2020028925 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509539888 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509539895 (paperback) | ISBN 9781509539901 (epub) | ISBN 9781509544929 (adobe pdf)

Subjects: LCSH: Hospitality. | Immigrants--Government policy. | Refugees--Government policy. | Emigration and immigration--Social aspects. | Strangers.

Classification: LCC GT3410 .A4313 2021 (print) | LCC GT3410 (ebook) | DDC 395.3--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020028924

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020028925

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This essay is the result of various encounters. I would like to thank Patrick Boucheron and Alain Prochiantz for inviting me to take part in the symposium ‘Migrations, asile, exil’ (‘Migration, Asylum, Exile’) held at the Collège de France in November 2016, where my ideas on the social form and the politics of hospitality began to take shape. Cyrille Hanappe and the whole team at Actes & Cité invited me to participate in their project on ‘La Ville accueillante’ (‘The Welcoming City’) organised by PUCA (Plan Urbanisme Construction Architecture) and by Ville de Grand-Synthe, thereby allowing me to discover the practical issues around municipal hospitality. My thanks to the whole team. Alain Policar offered me the opportunity to explore cosmopolitanism, in the company of a range of philosophers, for an issue (201) of the journal Raison Présente for 2017 and for a symposium on the same subject, ‘Cosmopolitisme ou barbarie?’ (‘Cosmopolitanism or Barbarity?’) (Cevipof/Sciences Po, June 2018): I am deeply grateful to him. Reflections on the theme of becoming a stranger and cinematographic representations of the subject were presented at the Festival des 3 Continents/Cinémas d’Afrique, d’Amérique Latine et d’Asie (Nantes, October 2017). My thanks go in particular to Claire Allouche, the programme planner, and to Jêrôme Baron, the artistic director, for their invitation.

This essay is based on discussions held in the context of the Babels research programme (Agence nationale de la recherche, 2016–19): our focus was on what has been referred to as ‘the migration crisis’, and we drew on research conducted in the field, largely open workshops, and short essays published by Éditions du passage clandestine in the series ‘Bibliothèque des frontières’, which I codirect with Stefan Le Courant. I would like to thank the forty or so researchers, students, and representatives from the voluntary sector who together made up the Babels collective from which I drew the inspiration and the enthusiasm for this book. Finally, it was in the context of my course ‘Anthropologies de l’hospitalité’ (‘Anthropologies of Hospitality’), held at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales during the years 2016/17 and 2017/18, that the overall concept for this book gradually emerged. I thank the many people who participated in such a lively manner, and to my colleagues who brought us their own insight.