Derrida's Unconditional Hospitality as the Improbable: An Example of Innovation in Refugee Care

Melissa Kerr Chiovenda, Zayed University

Document Type

Article

Source of Publication

Social Science Quarterly

Publication Date

1-1-2020

Abstract

© 2020 by the Southwestern Social Science Association Objective: I contend that City Plaza, a refugee-run hotel in Athens, Greece has actually used socialist and anarchist political theories in an innovative way for our current global system by subverting the norms of the nation-state with regard to refugee care. I am framing this argument by considering Derrida's discussion of unconditional and conditional hospitality. Methods: The article is based on ethnographic research carried out in Athens during the summers from 2016–2019. Results: I suggest that in its innovative methods of providing refugee care, City Plaza is highly successful. Conclusion: While Derrida contends that unconditional hospitality, the acceptance and embracing of the stranger without condition or question, is a moral imperative, realistically this is not possible in our current global system. I argue that at City Plaza, the improbable was achieved as a group of activists subverted the dominant system and yielded better results than state governments and international organizations with much greater resources.

ISSN

0038-4941

Publisher

Wiley

Volume

101

Issue

7

First Page

2437

Last Page

2449

Disciplines

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Scopus ID

85097849958

Indexed in Scopus

yes

Open Access

no

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