Three Reasons for Hospitality

Care for Others, Care for the World, and Care of the Self

Bibliographic Data

ID6320136
AuthorsAbigail Taylor (0000-0002-0130-5231), Alexandre Lefebvre (0000-0001-7154-9381)
Year2022
Volume20
Issue1
Pages139-153
Publication date2022-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePerspectives on Politics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1537-5927 • E-ISSN: 1541-0986
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s1537592720001383
OpenAlexW3037017774
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited51

We seek to answer a deceptively simple question: why do private citizens in liberal democracies offer hospitality to undocumented migrants? Through qualitative interviews with French citizens, we propose three reasons. The first is widely recognized in the scholarly literature: hospitality is offered out of a care and concern for vulnerable and precarious migrants. However, we uncover two additional reasons that are not acknowledged in studies on hospitality. One is the desire by citizens to uphold the basic principles and ideals of their own society (what we call “care for the world”). Another is the desire on the part of citizens themselves to become a different and better kind of person by practicing hospitality (what we call “care of the self”). We provide a multifaceted account of what motivates citizens to offer hospitality even in situations where it is outlawed by their own governments

Hospitality · Political science · Public relations · Qualitative research · Social science · Sociology · Tourism · Law · Migration, Identity, and Health · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Multiculturalism, Politics, Migration, Gender

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