An Anthropology of Hospitality

抄録

The anthropological conceptualization of hospitality originated within classical wisdom on reciprocity and mediated "otherness" (Benveniste 1986; Pitt-Rivers 1968; Akasaka 1992; Komatsu 1995). Nevertheless, as the global age has blurred social boundaries, considerable interdisciplinary attention has been paid to the concept of hospitality, especially with regard to the relationship between the self and the other; this research trend has been influenced mainly by the philosophical thought of Jacques Derrida (cf. Candea and da Col 2012a: iii). In this introduction to this special theme, I redefine the category of hospitality in order to present an anthropological alternative to Derrida's philosophical arguments by reviewing not only his conceptualization of hospitality but also anthropological studies on the topic.

Hospitality as an Aporia Based on his own thoughts regarding the "impossibility" of the gift, the autoimmunity of democracy, and Emile Benveniste's etymological examination of hospitality, Derrida combined the words "hospitality" and "hostility" and coined the term "hostipitality" (Derrida 2018: 83). This neologism implies that the act of offering seemingly unconditional hospitality to the other always entails the risks of turning hospitality into hostility between the self and the other. He offers hospitality as an antinomy, thus uncovering an aporia between the ethical requirement of treating the other with absolute openness and the exclusionary sovereignty of the self. His proposition compelled one to consider hospitality with the assumption that it is conditioned by political, legal, or moral imperatives.

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