The Stranger as My Guest. Michel Agier

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The Stranger as My Guest - Michel Agier


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      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

      by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NL

      The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.

      Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.

      For further information on Polity, visit our website: politybooks.com

      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.

      Finally, I would like to thank Bruno Auerbach at Éditions du Seuil for his attentive and perceptive reading of the French manuscript.

      Since the stranger who is my guest, the one arriving now, is by definition an outsider, someone who has literally come from outside, there is always the risk that, in that first glimpse, no matter how distant or indistinct that person’s silhouette appears, he or she will be seen as an intruder by the people who witness that arrival, even though this would not be the stranger’s own perception. Hospitality represents a response to this ambiguity, to the doubts and uncertainties that stem from it. It is the moment where a single gesture can transform the stranger into a guest, even if he or she still continues to be a stranger to some extent, and therefore continues to embody certain elements of the intruder. It is through the various manifestations and experiences of this practice of hospitality (still to be defined in the details of its implementation, its impact and its limitations) that each individual gradually forms their own conception of the stranger, of the different rules and regimes and of the extent of their strangeness, and therefore of the relationship that can be forged with him or her, both during and beyond the initial gesture of hospitality. Whatever its limitations in time and space, this ‘space–time’ of hospitality is a vital element in determining the nature of the ensuing relationship.

      Something of the stranger has to intrude, or else he loses his strangeness. If he already has the right to enter and stay, if he is awaited and received, no part of him being unexpected or unwelcome, then he is not an intruder any more, but then neither is he any longer a stranger. To exclude all intrusiveness from the stranger’s coming is therefore neither logically acceptable nor ethically admissible.

      If, once he is there, he remains a stranger, then for as long as this remains so […] his coming does not stop: he continues to come and his coming does not stop intruding in some way […] a disturbance, a trouble in the midst of intimacy.

      We have to think this through,


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