Routledge

ANGELAKIjournal of the theoretical humanitiefvolume 9 number 2 august 2004

Surveyor,' he said, 'you cannot stay here.Forgive the impoliteness.' 'I didn't want

to stay,' said K.. 'I simply wanted a little rest.Now that I havi" had it, I am leaving.' 'This lackof hospitality may surprise you,' said the man,'but there ia no eustom of hospitality here, we donot need guests.'"' This is what Kafka writes atthe outset of The Castle, a labyrinthine descrip-tion of K.'s futile and hopeles.* attempts, aapointed out by Max Brod, "to acquire properrelations with the village and the castle."^

"... There i no custom of hospitality here, wedo not need guests": following this double nega-tion the uncanny scene of being foreign expandsad nauseam. The uninvited guest has to faceunfamiliar edifices, ijiexplicable customs, un-known and undecipherable habits, he encountersenigmatic people and is confronted with namesindicating not legible, interpretahlo relations bntutterly unknown strangers. In turn, the locals arejuxtaposed with a foreigner, one who does notcomprehend, arts in an odd manner and disruptsfamiliar comforts, the usual order of things."You're not from the castle, you're not from thevillage, you are nothing. Unfortunately, though,you are something, a stranger, one who is su-perfluous and gets iji the way everywhere, onewho is a coastant source of trouble ... a manwhose intentions are utterly unknown here" (4fl).Even K.'s love affair with a maid and his veryeffort to gain protection oi at least one ol theresidents produce only failure, mistrust, malevol-ence and reveal nothing but tbe futility of hispainful attempts, if he cannot become a '"friend,"to at least become a "fellow citizen," not toaccept "charity'" from the rastle but insist on hisdue "rights" (24, 74). But what can a strangerexpect from \illage and castle, what can hedemand and wbich rights are aeeorded to him?

heidrun friese

translated by james keye

SPACES OFHOSPITALITY

The uninvited guest, interrogated immedi-ately upon arrival about the reasons, goals andintentions of his presence, becomes subject tomysterious decisions, inexplicable and implausi-ble rules and regulations. K. is but a foreignerwhose fate is sealed between the folders ofrecords, the covers of files, and has no access totbe offices and bureaucratic processes, this"ridiculous tangle" which nevertheless decidesupon his existence, a tangle about which he, ashe is instantly accused, speaks "in the manner ofa stranger," miscomprehending everything "eventhe silence." K. is but an annoying foreigner whoeven believes to know it all better than the"natives" and "everyone here" and that it ispossible to once "accomplish something that

ISSN 0969-725X print/ISSN 1469-2899 online/04/020067-13 © 2004 Taylor & Francis Ltd and the Editors of AngetakiDOt: 10.1080/0969725042000272753

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spaces of hospitality

runs ahsolutely connter to the rules and the oldtraditions..." (63, 32, 80, 51).

It is precisely this detachment, this distancefrom hahits, cnstom and traditions that CeorgSimmel - in his "excursus on the stranger" -called the "objectivity ofthe stranger," an objec-tivity which does not indicate siinply "distanceand disinterest" hut involves a "specific con-struction of distance and proximity, of indiffer-ence and engagement." If the foreigner, asSimmel notes, is "not bound by habit, piety orantecedents in his actions" hecause being faraway from home he possesses no past and nohistory, if "the objective man is not bound bystructures which might prejudice his reception,understanding and judgment of given circum-stances," a certain "freedom" is opened up.' Noone recognized this liberation from prerequisitesand circumstances, even the obje(tivity of thestranger, more clearly than K. by stating:"... certainly I am ignorant, tbat at le^st is true,sadly enongh for me, but the advantage here isthat those wbo are ignorant take greater risks,and 90 r i l gladly put up with my deficientknowledge and bear its undoubtedly serious con-sequences for a little while ..." (55). And tbisliberation, this liberty to bear and to be put upwitb might be the reason why the foreign guestcan become the one that Pierre Klossowski sees"emerging on the bori2on as liberator."^

If K., the stranger - who as in Simmel's visionis not a traveller who "arrives today and is gonetomorrow" but tbe guest who "arrives today andremains tomorrow"" is repeatedly reminded ofthe fragility of his predicament, and bis effortsto achieve understanding and to gain insight areconstantly deferred and postponed, it neverthe-less hecomes evident that the unknown andthreatening foreigner cannot be completely ex-cluded irom the familiarity of daily existenceand experience. If being-foreign signifies thatthe "distant is proximate" as distance signifiesthat "proximity is remote," the concept of hospi-tality is to be situated within a constellationmarked by distinet ambivalences.'' In tbe follow-ing, therefore, I would like to call attention tothe tensions between hospitality and hostility,proximity and distance, belonging and beingforeign, inclusion and exclusion and as such

pursue the ambivalences of the languages ofhospitality which have been evidenced byanthropology and currently stimulate pbilosoph-ieal discourse and the renewed ethics of re-sponsibility.

"[T]bere is no custom of hospitality here, wedo not need guests." Does one need guests? Doeshospitality eoneern exclusively the one who isneeded? Is the host needed by the guest, or is itthe host who is dependent upon the arrival andthe reception of tbe guest? Who gives and whoreceives? "'Certainly,* said K., 'what would youneed guests for? But every now and then some-one is needed, such as me, the land surveyor.' 'Idon't know about that,' the man said slowly, 'iftbey summoned you, then they probably needyou, this might be an exception, but we littlepeople go by the rule, you shouldn't blame usfor that.' 'No, no,' said K., 'I simply want tothank you, you and all the others here'" (12-13).' Does the guest venture an economicallycalculated risk? Must one have the means to"afford" guests if an intended profit cannot bemade, and what is "the rule" that one mustfollow? Is every form of hospitality not inher-ently bound to a call, a response and tbus toreciprocation? Does bospitality not open to, doesit not give time, trust in duration and a futurityand at the same time reiterate a beginning againof an inaugural moment? Does hospitality notexpect, give rise to an anticipation, tbe projectand the open possibility of reciprocation and afuture counter-gift, a return to the precedent ofdemonstrated generosity, bnt must be eertain ofirretrievable or even ruinous losses? Is it houndto confidence and trust? Can a stranger, who isof no use and not a means to an end, find itsplace? And didn't K. in his appreciative declar-ation of thanking not already cite, notice, re-member and acknowledge an unreturned debt?Is the seene, the site of hospitality bound to aform of obhgation. a memory engaged in antici-pation, potentiality and the open possibilities ofa future: is hospitality thus an engagement inreciprocal exchange giving rise to time?

Exploring "tbe vocabulary of Indo-EuropeanInstitutions," Emile Benveniste illustrates thatthe Latin notions of guest, hostis and ho.spisrefer to two different semantic fields." On one

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hand, the morphological structure (hosti-pet-s)refers to the "master ot the bouse" {pet —>pot = potis, Gr. potis), who as the despotes (Lat.dominus) nevertheless does not rule over sub-jects but embodies and represents the identity ofthe household and the extended family. As ipsis-simus he is at the same time his own master, butcertainly not tbe master of bis guests. On theother hand, the original definition of hostisrefers to the one who stands in a "compensatoryrelationship" to the one who returns tbe gift andas sucb creates a relationship based upon re-ciprocity'^

Unlike the peregrinus who lived beyond theborders, the hostis enjoyed the same rights asthe one who lived beyond the borders, enjoyedthe same rights as the Roman citizen - "quoderant pari iure cum popolo Romano" (but oneshould not forget that not all non-Romans werecalled hostis) - and hostire was used in the senseof aequare or compensate. Tberefore, a relation-ship of both equality and reciprocity is indi-cated, and with it the requirement to returnservices and gifts.'" In this respect, the termhospis, as tbe Greek xenos and xenia, refers toan alliance, a reciprocal pact which eould betransmitted and inherited to those who follow."(This practice not only enshrines a genealogicalaeheme but is known to have been connected tothe symhol whicb once worked as a sign ofverification among friends, partners in trade ormessengers. If the two broken pieces conformedto eacb otber, it was proved unmistakably tbatthey onee belonged together and tbus bridgedtbe ruptures of time and space.)

In addition to these meanings, hostisjho.spesalso came to signify the "enemy." Hostis wasoriginally used to designate neither the strangernor the enemy, and Benveniste relates this shiftin meaning to the changes oi Roman institu-tions: when an "ancient society becomes a na-tion, interpersonal relations as well as thosebetween clans weaken. Only the distinction be-tween what is internal and external to the civitasremains relevant."'" It is with drawing borderstbat the guest becomes the (public) enemy (andin the Homeric epies the guest becomes thestranger, the one who does not belong to tbecommunity as well). As such, the meanings of

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the words "guest" and "stranger" are connectedwith tbe political and legal institutions of tbecommunity or the state. I will return to theseaspects helow. At this point let us briefly sum-marize the semantic and conceptual field ofhostisjhospe.%: it originally referred to the ident-ity of the master of the house (i.e., the family,the household), it was bound to a reciprocalexchange, a mandatory pact, and as such waspart of the legal and institutional framework anda specific "politics of hospitality." In its doublemeaning the notion refers to botb the guest, i.e.,the stranger, and to the enemy and thus alreadyworks on the equation of "being-foreign" and"hostile."

Tbis ambivalence between friend and enemysuggests a relation in which the exchange ^withone another, the hospilalitas transforms intoone against another, the hostilitas," as Hans-Di-eter Bahr observes (an ambivalence whicb is aswell articulated in the word hostia, a compensa-tory sacrifice meant to placate the fury of thegods). In this context, the guest becomes theenemy and exchange no longer signifies alliancebnt at best the "forgoing of violence."'~* Manypractices and babits of hospitality are character-ized by this ambivalence wbich, despite all his-toric and cultural differentiations, has - as JulianPitt-Rivers with reference to the law of hospi-tality concludes a "joint sociological back-ground,"'^ whicb was already recognized byGeorg Simmel. Tbus the stranger was not onlyin the ancient city - dependent upon a patron.Through a personal connection to a recognizedmember of the community he was granted cer-tain rights. Having these rights mediatedtbrough a third, the patron, he nevertheless hadno other status than that of a stranger, or to bemore precise: the highly ambivalent and precari-ous "status of the status-less."'' Similarly inAfrican societies - as in the Tallensi in thepre-colonial era - no stranger to the tribe, lack-ing relatives or friends in the tribe to vouch forhis peaceful intentions, could move freely with-out risking being carried off, enslaved or evenkilled."' The status ofa stranger, and tbis is whatI would like to stress here, is, as Julian Pitt-Riv-ers wTitcs, to be situated "between that of thehostile stranger and that of a member of the

spaces of hospitality

society."'' And does one not - to return to myopening remarks - state ohtusely: "You are notfrom the castle, you are not from the village, youaren't anything. Unfortunately, though, you aresomething, a stranger."

The Janus-faced status of the foreigner stampshis social being, the unknown past, which pene-trates and transcends his arrival, his descent,origins, his "domestic situation" is unknown andhis intentions are opaque. As such K. is interro-gated: "The only issue now is what kind ofassurances you will have to give ... for no matterhow much I respect you you're a stranger, youeannot give referenees, we know nothing aboutyour domestic situation."'^ The questionabilityof this being is equitable witb the doubt in tbestranger's capabilities to understand the whollynew rules of social association and not to misin-terpret everything, as in fact K. does and misin-terprets "even the silence," and speaks about allfamiliar rules and regulations "as would astranger." The stranger embodies the encounterwith the unknown, duhious, incomprehensibleand uncanny. The aspects of hospitality whichshould guarantee protection and asylum, secur-ity and exchange and not malieious deception,invasion, plundering and booty, are nourishedby the stranger's doubtfulness and bis potentialthreat. And it is precisely this association withuncanny danger whicb allows the rendering of"the" stranger into a scapegoat (Rene Girard) orthe public enemy.

The practices of hospitality aim to bridleantagonism and hostility. Hospitable gesturescreate a doubled time, they give time and aspireto a clearly unenforceable possibility of a return,the experience of an open possibility, tbey aim atreliability, durability and continuity to assignhost and guest reciprocally to one another andyet they are renewed and reaffirmed at everyinstant. In fact, notbing appears less sacrilegiousthan tbe betrayal of hospitality, not to mentionthe murder of innocent, unsuspecting guests.and at one time it was taken for granted that theErinyes revenged the violations of the law ofhospitality. Still today our well-known and fam-iliar precepts of courtesy are inhabited by thistension. They are to order the ambivalent rela-tionship between host and guest to protect botb

from the "smallest injury, and exclude any possi-bility of hostility." ' Numerous more or lesscodified rules of behaviour are to limit tbe sligbt-est possibilities of affront, the betrayal of host orguest. Instructions for etiquette seek to avoidthe destabilization of an equilibrium and tostrengthen the exchange of reciprocal favoursand to eliminate possible imbalances. The de-mands of proper behaviour and the demonstra-tions of education may demand the resoluterefusal of an offered meal, or the inverse, deniedfood can signal disrespect or extreme disdain.What comes into play are the appropriate pro-portions of nobility, attention and care, generos-ity of effort in accommodation and kindness, thenobility of which demonstrates symmetry, re-spect and attention but sbould not defy or af-front. The fine art of hospitality avoids thedestabilization of a fragile equihbrium, itcertifies esteem and consideration wbicb is ex-ceptional but not challenging or insulting, asdoes the clear rale to depart at the right time, soas not to interrupt the daily routine and rhythmof the house and become a burden or a nuisance.(With reference to tbe boly law of hospitalitywhich demanded to host someone for three days,an Italian saying is apt in tbis context:"un'ospite e come un pesce. Dopo tre giornipuzza" "'a guest is like a fish. After three daysit stinks.") The prohibition of a potentiallyconHictua! equality, just as tbe requirement ofgranting honour and demonstrating respect orthe imperatives not to openly insist on rightsand demands, given that hospitality cannot bedictated or enforced but only granted, are partof the ambivalent space of hospitality, its refinedlanguage and gestnres, for which the recognitionof fine distinctions is a prerequisite.

It has been demonstrated repeatedly tbat tbequestionabiiity of the unknown, the ambivalenceof the stranger, is nourished by the encounterwith the secret and the connection of strangenesswith the holy. Tbe law of bospitality in the Arabworld is bound to the sanctity of its women forwbich the master of the household wbo embod-ies its honour is responsible. He is required toprovide protection to every stranger - be it hisworst enemy - given that the sanctity of tbehouse takes precedence over the imperatives of

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retaliation."" The duty of giving asylum is ascommon in other parts of the world as is theox-enie, the belief that tbe gods revealed them-selves, as in the mytb of Philemon and Baucis,as beggars or strangers. And this is why "therewere times" according to Hans-Dieter Bahr inhis "meta-ethics" of hospitality, in which thehost should not ask tbe guest for his "name,origin, or desire, not even if he might belong tothe immortals or not."^' The law of hospitalityharbours a trace of the divine order, conceals itseffectiveness among men and makes it binding.It is Zeus Xenios who is to guard the stranger,while the community, as much as the state andthe laws, is to guarantee the effectiveness of thisdivine order.""" I will return to this aspect and theantinomy of nomos and nomni.

If the stranger, the guest, is relegated to anambivalent and unstable place vacillating be-tween friendship and hostility, between outsideand inside, the sacred and the profane, he isassigned a space between social proximity anddistance, between integration and exclusion. Ac-cordingly, the diverse practices of hospitalitywhich transform the stranger, the guest, into ahuman and social being have been understood asprocesses wliich order ambivalences in an effortto place the unknown, albeit precariously, withinthe soeial geography. The various customa ofhospitality have been seen as more or less for-malized rites of integration whicb regulate thetransformation of a stranger's status and fashionhim as socially acceptable. The stranger becomesa "new social being" and is allocated to a deter-mined place in society; he must be "transformedinto a relative or citizen" to receive rights and toassume duties and responsibilities."'

Jnst this - as is made evident by the spell andthe inaccessibility of castle and village - is K.'sconcern, if not to become a "friend then .. .afellow citizen" who does not accept a "charity"from the castle but is entitled witb "rights" (adesire, however, the fulfilinent of which ivill beperpetually postponed). Bnt who qualifies to beaccepted as citizen to whom rights and duties areaccorded, and what does "integration" signify?

With regard to the peoples of Ghana, MeyerFortes has pointed to the problems arising withtbe transformation of social belonging regulated

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by descent and kinship, and its substitution bycitizenship which became relevant with theemergence of the modern nation-state based onlaw and more or less universalistic criteria. Mem-bership in a local pohtical community in WestAfrican societies was commonly linked to de-scent or relations of kinship through adoption ormarriage. A free stranger could not become afully recognized member of a guest community,as be remained simultaneously citizen of hiscommunity of descent and birth. He received -as adopted slaves, war prisoners or refugees - a"proxy citizenship" which guaranteed him, me-diated via his master, "eeonomic and legal"rights yet no "political and religious" rights. Hecould not occupy a political office in tbe guestcommunity.^^ The establishment of a modernnation-state necessitated legislation whichdefined membership as well as the recognition ofcitizens as equal subjects of law. The estabhsh-ment of legal norms and regulations, bowever, inno way dictates that a foreigner must be ac-cepted in a local community. Not only villagecommunities distinguish clearly between rela-tives, friends, in-laws and immigrants and dis-criminate between those who have a commonhistory, shared narrations and memories thatmake belonging a realm of experience and thosewho have no common references and no sharedpast.

In this context, what has to be addressed isthe ahove-mentioned relationship between the(sacred) law of hospitality and the laws whichshould implement and guarantee their agency."^Anthropology has addressed the ambivalent rela-tionship between bost and guest with respect tobotb the manifold practices ol hospitality andtheir relationship with societal cosmologies, sym-bols, moral conceptions, political institutionsand legal arrangements. At the centre of thecurrent philosophical debate, in addition to thethematization of hospitahty as an integral part ofan ethics of the good life, or a renewed ethics ofresponsibility, are the tensions between, on theone hand, the law of unconditional hospitality,an absolute etbic requirement, and the laws, i.e.,the poUtical and legal limitations, on the other.These debates take place in the context of press-ing questions related to how contemporary

spaces of hospitality

democratic and plurahstic nation-states - unableto dictate commonly shared moral and ethicalprecepts should interpret and implement thelaw of hospitality. The question posed here ishow - given the crisis of the modern systems oforganized sohdarity and in an atmosphere ofgrowing nationalisms, resentment and animosity,general indifference and increasing xenophobia -to hospitably welcome the exiled, the deported,refugees, migrants and those who long

the stranger is rendered a guest only with re-spect to another singular Otber, namely the host,then "absolute bospitality" paradoxically be-comes the continuation of the phrase "we do notneed guests." In other words: absolute hospi-tality which claims to break decisively witb the -presumptive - econoBiic calculation of the pactand to internipt "conditioned" hospitality, ap-pHes its force even more in so far as it burdensthe Other with an unredeemable debt, leaveshim in an insoluble asymmetrical bond or makesbim a veritable traitor to hospitality. If bospi-tality - like friendship - is concerned with"demanding neither something nor nothing,"'''then absolute hospitality becomes a site ot un-speakable voids, in which the recognition, thenoting, even tbe very remembrance of bospi-tality dissolves or quite simply does not meananything at all. Hospitality as a response to thearrival of an Other and a demand inevitablyalways already implies a form of reciprocity. Astranger becomes a guest both in relation to anOther, namely a host, as tbe one wbo receives aguest - it is the host wbo receii^es as much as theguest gives himself to the host. Hospitality inter-venes - as a third? As xenia? As symbolon? - itintervenes there where one is obliged not only toan Other and bis irreplaceable singularity butalso to the mutual pact that only allows for, thatpromises negotiation, agreement {Verstdndi-gung)., even if it cannot assure or guarantee it.

Concepts of "hospitality" thematize not onlythe singularity of an Other and an obligation{Verbindlichkeit) but also the question of thepractices, the norms, values, ethics, the culturalsignificance of language itself, in short '"theethos," and witb it ^ what being-foreign andbeing-at-hoine {chez moi., chez soi, chez nous)could possibly indicate. What does heing-at-homc possibly mean in tbe context of tbe mod-ern condition of homelessness and permanentexile which addresses, as Friedrich Nietzschenoted, a "We" of those who are homeless, thosewho at tbe same time resist a "We."'''' No matterin which language an Other is addressed, bospi-tality questions familiar notions of being-at-home: can one be "at home," can we be "athome"? Am I not always already a being-a-stranger, estranged of an alleged 'VAe^ sot," and

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a ^"chez nous'''? Can one be identified in a "cheznous"' or am I not always a guest and at the sametime a host ^'chez nous''? Do tbese words notindicate a condition that can be established onlyif a singular being is transformed into a "we," a"we" of undeniable belonging and in turn asingular stranger is transformed into thestranger sui generis? Thus, what is involved arethe tensions between "being-at-home" and"being-a-stranger," between "integration,""identity," "estrangement," and "otherness."

If forms of hospitality are part of the lan-guages in whicb an Other is addressed (as bothDerrida and Bahr stress), what is required is alanguage which does not demand subjugation, alanguage tbat does not erase the other's singular-ity but acknowledges an unmistakable and irre-ducible singularity tbat thus becomes theprecondition of a possible justice, the possibilityof justice. Simmel had already remarked that theforeigner as the Other is enclosed in a generality,is not addressed in irreducible singularity (K.the foreigner remains nameless as well) but is"experienced" as a representation "of a specifiegeneralized type."* Tbese generalizations whichtransform tbe singular Other into tbe stranger -"for no matter how much I respect you, you rea stranger" - or into the generalized representa-tive of a stable and homogeneous culture, haverecently been questioned by concepts sucb as"hybridity," "diasporas," "transnationahsm,""dislocation" and "travelling cultures" that em-phasize hlurred borders, intersections and"contact zones," uncertain identities and theincreasing mobility of people and cultural traits.Concepts such as "acculturation," "syncretism"or even "assimilation" that onee described hnearprocesses from one culture to another, the over-lapping of two different systems or the dissol-ution of a distinct and confineable culture, itspractices, symbols into another distinguishableand confinable culture have been supplanted byconceptions that focus on the interrelation ofheterogeneous socio-cultural configurations.'^'Furthermore, these are seen as always havingbeen constituted reciprocally, as part of ambiva-lent, dynamic transnational and power-loadedprocesses which escape the establishment ofclearly identifiable birders and identities.

spaces of hospitality

In the context of transnational communities,blurred borders and uncertain identities,^" it isobvious that such perspectives open up to ques-tions about what concepts such as "integration,""belonging," ultimately: a "politics of hospi-tality" can possibly mean, a politics tbat wouldnot be immediately intertwined with a politics ofidentity wbicb - with sorrow - either mourns tbeirretrievable loss of "difference" and "otberness"or,'' as tbe new nationalisms, fanatic communi-tarianisms and/or ethnicity movements, fervidlyproclaims and attempts to save one's own anddistinct "authenticity" hy mystifying "absoluteOtherness" and "difference." To redress a closed- alleged • homogeneous and monolithic ident-ity of "Eurocentric thought," a concept of ident-ity is often constnicted, which does not accountfor the constitutive Veranderung ("being-oth-ered") of the encounter. *" but is one thatsignifies unequivocally definable identity - be itthe "dominant" or one's own (counter-)community - and inevitably confines the singleindividual in her belonging to such a com-munity. Thus, in an inverted pervious context, aprocedure wbich claims ethnic, cultural or re-ligious homogeneity is repeated, and immutableboundaries are constructed between "us" and"them," "inside" and "outside," exclusion andinclusion.

Within the contemporary context, however,what is at stake is the development of a "politicsof hospitality" which neither denies and thusmisses the ambivalences and tensions of thelanguages of hospitality ultimately to dissolvethem in an absolute notion, nor dictates anemphasis of belonging, identity and alterity.Hospitality signifies the deferment of definitehelongings and evolves in a hminal space, whichneither demands a specific preliminary selflesssacrifice, the "pure gift" (Marcel Mauss), norcalculates greedy use, predatory exploitation andadvantage. Rather, it opens a space and forms ofexchange that allow for encounter, yet does notextinguish the obligations that must be noticedand noted {Vermerken) for hospitality to comeinto being and to subsist.

The various "languages of hospitality," whicharrange different concepts of the relationshipwith the Other and mark tie site of hospitality.

involve the questions of territory and border, ofprivate and public spaces, and tbey entail tbequestion of wbat is considered tbe common, aswell as concepts of belonging, membership, citi-zenship, and exclusion. Tbese languages concernthe foundations of social life. ' They also refer tothought and academic practices which are tore-present social worlds. Tbus what is at stake isnot only the thinking oJ hospitality, but tbink-ing as hospitality.'^

If hospitality is a site of thought, not justanthropology may prove to be a form of"xenosopby" - I borrow the notion from Hans-Dieter Bahr - which evidences an always operat-ive constitutive Veranderung that denies anyform of stable and describahle identity. Thuswhat is at stake is not just the recognition ofotherness in the supposed own self and thatwhich is one's own within otherness, but anawareness of and the insistence on the principledimpossibility of a clearly defined "own" and/or"other." Directing curiosity and questioning nottowards stable sites of impermeable conceptualarchitectures but to the amazing and contradic-tory plurality, tbe emergence of social life and itsimaginaries, an open space might be gained inwhich anthropology and philosophy - acknowl-edgijig the ambivalences of hospitality and itslangnages - could hospitably engage. "As befitstwo disciphnes." Clifford Geertz remarks,

neither of which is clearly defined and both ofwhicb adilri'ss rlieniselves to the whole humanlife and thought, anthropology and philosophyare more than a tittle suspicious of one another.The anxiety that comes with a combination ofa diffuse and miscellaneous academic identityand an ambition to connect just about every-thing with everj-thing else and get, thereby, toihe bottom of things leaves both of themunsure as to which of them should be doingwhat. It is not that tlieir borders overlapi, it isthat they have no borders anyone can, with anyassurance, draw. It is not that their interestsdiverge, it is tbat nothing, apparently, is; aliento either of them.

Beyond their riorTnally obli<}ue and implicitcompetition for the last word and the first, thetwo fields share a number of other cbaracteris-tics that trouble their relations with out" an-other and make cooperation between them

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unnecessarily difficult. Most especially, both ofthem are porous and imperiled, fragile andunder siege.'"'

If the significance that the concept "hospitality"might gain allows for an open space permittingdifference and negotiation{Verstdndigung) and it resistsclaims of identity and belong-ing, tben this should be appli-cable to institutionalizedsites of thought as well.

notes

1 F. Kafka. The Cost/e 12. All references to Kafkaare to the English edition. Page numbers aregiven in the body of the text. The followingconsiderations are based on my inaugural lectureat the Fachbereich Philosophie und Ges-chichtswissenschaften at the johann WolfgangGoethe-Universitat, Frankfurt am Main on I IDecember 2002. I would like to thank the mem-bers of the faculty for their hospitality, especiallyProfessors Axel Honneth and Klaus E. Mullerwho taught me that the "greatest triumphs arethose unknown to others." An earlier version ofthis paper was published in Deutsche Zeitschrift furPhilosophie 2 (2003): 311-23.

2 F. Kafka. Dos SchloH 349. Brod interpreted bothThe Trial and The Castle as representations of the"outward forms of divinity (in the Cabalisticsense)" as "judgment and mercy." The theologi-cal elements of this interpretation have beencriticized by Walter Benjamin, among others.

3 G. Simmel, "Exkurs iiber den Fremden" 766,767. 766-67; all trans, mine.

4 P. Klossowski. Oie Gesetze der Gastfreundschafi126.

5 Simmel, "Exkurs uber den Fremden" 764.

6 Ibid. 765.

7 Bonnie Honig's discussion of the foreign-foun-der inverts the perception of the stranger as adeplorable problem by asking "what does thestranger solve for us?" Honig, Den}ocrocy and theForeigner A.

8 E. Benveniste, Indo-European Languages and So-

ciety 7 1 .

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9 "A bond of equality and reciprocity is estab-lished between this particular stranger and thecitizens of Rome ... host/s will signify, he whostands in a compensatory relationship and this isprecisely the foundation of hospitality." as Ben-veniste notes [Indo-European Languages and So-

ciety 76-77). Simultaneously this meaning wasalso connected to munus, a position of honourrelated to reciprocation and to mutuus, a bindingcontract. Correspondingly, the immunis. the onewho did not meet the requirements, became theingratus. R. Esposito {Communitas: Origine e des-

tino delta comunita XIII-XXVI) pointed to themanifold relations between donum, munus and"community." The relations between "gift, ex-change and obligation" have also been discussedby G. Marramao ("Passaggio a Oriente, donoscambio obligazone").

10 Benveniste, /ndo-European Languages and So-ciety 76-77.

I I Ibid. 79. Benveniste refers to "institutions ofwelcoming and reciprocity, thanks to which themen of a given people find hospitality in another,and whereby societies enter into alliances andexchanges" (83).

12 Ibid. 78. The scenes and topoi of hospitality inthe Homeric epic are presented in detail in S.Reece, The Stranger's Welcome: Oral Theory and

the AesthetJcs of the Homeric Hospitality Scene.

13 H.-D. Bahr, Die Sprache des Gastes: Eine

Metaethik 37.

14 J. Pitt-Rjvers, "Das Gastrecht" 21.

15 Ibid. 21. One could link up to certain aspectsof Agamben's notions of "la nuda vita." Cf. G.Agamben. Homo socer // potere sovrano e la nudavita.

16 M, Fortes, "Fremde" 46.

17 Pitt-Rivers, "Das Gastrecht" 22; emphasis

added.

18 Kafka. Tbe Castle 47.

19 Bahr. Die Sprache des Gostes 49.

20 A.H. Abou-Said, "Honour and Shame amongthe Bedouins of Egypt."

21 Bahr, Die Sprache des Gastes 27. According toancient Arab custom it was considered ex-tremely impolite to enquire as to name, origins,

spaces of hospitality

goals and purpose of a guest (Pitt-Rivers, "DasGastrecht" 22). The Homeric guest scene, how-ever, clearly includes the revelation of name,origins and kinship relations which, however, arerevealed only after the meal and the toasts. TheHomeric host also demands of his guest the"honest" declarations of name, origin and pur-pose (cf. Reece, The Stronger's We/come 29).

22 Plato addressed this holy, divine order:

And how a man ought to order what relatesto his descendants and his kindred andfriends and fellow-citizens, and the rites ofhospitality taught by Heaven, and the inter-course which arises out of all these duties.with a view to the embellishment and or-derly regulation of his own life, these things,I say, the laws, as we proceed with them.will accomplish, partly persuading, and partlywhen natures do not yield to the persuasionof custom, chastising them by might andright, and will thus render our state, if theGods co-operate with us. prosperous andhappy.

Plato continues:

In his relations to strangers, a man shouldconsider that a contract is a most holything, and that all concerns and wrongs ofstrangers are more directly dependent onthe protection of God. than wrongs done tocitizens; for the stranger, having no kindredand friends, is more to be pitied by Godsand men. Wherefore, also, he who is mostable to avenge him is most zealous in hiscause; and he who is most able is the geniusand the god of the stranger, who follow inthe train of Zeus, the god of strangers. Andfor this reason, he who has a spark ofcaution in him will do his best to passthrough life without sinning against thestranger. (Plato, Books 4 and 5)

23 Pitt-Rivers. "Das Gastrecht" 20; and Fortes."Fremde" 76.

24 Ibid. 66-67.

25 On the notion of nomos. which first signifiedtaking possession of and distributing pastures,and as such had spatial aspects as well as conno-tations to justice, see M. Cacciari. Gewolt undHarmonie 109.

26 Jean-Jacques Rousseau had already addressedthis contemporary dilemma;

The room we are shown into is very small,but clean and comfortable; a fire Is lighted,and we find linen, clothes, and ever/thingwe need. "Why," says Emile. in astonish-ment, "one would think they were expect-ing us. The peasant was quite right; howkind and attentive, how considerate, and forstrangers too! I would think I am living inthe times of Homer." "I am glad you feelthis," I say. "but you need not be surprised.Where strangers are scarce, they are wel-come. Nothing makes people more hospit-able than the fact that calls upon theirhospitality are rare; when guests are fre-quent there is an end to hospitality. InHomer's time, people rarely travelled, andtravellers were everywhere welcome. Verylikely we are the only people who havepassed this way this year." "Never mind."he says, "to know how to do without guestsand yet to give them a kind welcome is itsown praise. (J.-J. Rousseau, Emite, or OnEducation)

And again, what is addressed is the question ofwhether guests are needed.

27 Cf. J. Derrida and A. Dufourmantelie. DeI'hospitalite 29.

28 Derrida refers to the inalienable antinomy ofthe Law in its "universal singularity" and theplurality of laws and their historical differentiation(Derrida and Dufourmantelie, De I'hospitalite 73).Cf. Derrida; "il y a une histoire de I'hospitalite,une perversion toujours possible de Lo loi derhospitalite (qui peut apparaitre inconditionnelle)et des lois qui viennent la limiter, la conditionneren Tinscrivant dans un droit" (Derrida, Cosmopo-lites de tous les pays, encore un effort! 43).

29 "... elle lui est aussi etrangement heterogeneque la justice est heterogene au droit dont elleest pourtant si proche. et en verite indissociable"(Derrida and Dufourmantelie. De I'hospHaiite 29).

30 We should not forget the specific traditions inwhich this thought inevitably evolves. Greekthought knew - with the stoic heritage, and thecosmopolitan and Christian traditions (Paulus) -how to see men not as strangers but as brothersand united cosmopolitans. This proposal Is addi-tionally profoundly indebted to Emmanuel

76

Levinas's ethics (cf. Derrida. Adieu a EmmanuelLevinas) but could also be related to E. Jabes (LeUvre de I'hospitalite).

31 I. Kant, "Uber ein vermeintliches Recht ausMenschenliebe zu iCigen"; cf. I. Kant. "Idee zueiner allgemeinen Geschichte in weltburgerlicherAbsicht." The rational idea of a peaceful if notfriendly community is not an "ethic-philan-thropic" venture but, as Kant stresses, a "legalprinciple" (emphasis mine). Nations are not legalcommunities of propriety {communio) but of in-terrelation {commercium). The law that guaran-tees this without allowing that the "strangerbeing legitimated to treat him as an enemy" (derAuswartige ihn darum als einen Feind zu begegnenberechtigt ware) is cosmopolitan law {ius cosmol-politicum) which entails the right to visit but notto stay. For the latter. Kant insisted on the needof a "special treaty" (I. Kant, Die Metaphysik derSitten, sect. 62, "Das Weltbijrgerrecht" 475-77).

32 M. Walzer. Spheres of justice: A Defense ofPluralism and Equality 31-63. esp. chapter 2.Membership, 33-34. One certainly does notneed to share Waizer's communitarian pro-gramme to agree with this point.

33 Bahr. Die Sprache 221.

34 Cf. Derrida and Dufourmantelie, DeI'hospitatite 117. Derrlda refers to Levinas: "lelanguage est hospitalite." and asks "I'ethlque esthospitalite" - "cultJver I'etique de t'hospitalite. celangage n'est-il pas ... tautologique?" (Derrida.Cosmopo/ites de tous les pays, encore un effort!

35 F. Nietzsche, Die frohliche Wissenschaft 630-31, no. 277.

36 Simmel. "Exkurs uber den Fremden" 770.

37 J. Clifford, Routes. Travel and Transtatjon in dieLate Twentietb Century 7.

38 Such concepts seem to point to "the loss ofplace as a dominant metaphor for culture." How-ever, even such approaches - and the insistenceon "glocal communities" - repeat a paradigm tiedto stabile spaces, well-integrated fields of re-search; "it can be very tempting to converge aquest for familiar anthropological 'fields' withessentialist categories appearing in public dis-courses and to justify this as an attentiveness tothe 'voices' of subordinated "others'" (V. Amitand N. Rapport. The Trouble with Community:

11

friese

Anthropotogicol Reflections on Movement, Identityand Collectivity 3, 4).

39 Renewed emphasis on "community" and sub-stantial bonds between the ones who belongecho not just the old sociological distinctionsbetween "community" and "society" (Tbnnies),"modern vs. traditional" societies and its varia-tions such as "organic vs. mechanical solidarity"(Durkheim). but can be seen as modern attemptsto engage with and to remedy modernities. Fora discussion of this inversion in contemporaryidentity politics, see H. Friese. "Pre-judice andIdentity" and Identities: Time, Boundaries and Dif-ference.

40 The reference is obviously to M. Theunissen{The Other. Studies in the Sociat Ontology ofHusserl.Heidegger. Sartre, ond Buber. (orig. Der Andere:Studien zur Sozialontologie der Gegenwort.)). whichis still the best contribution to the question ofthe Other.

41 Derrida and Dufourmantelie. De t'hospitalite63.

42 Under the heading "One has to learn tolove," Friedrich Nietzsche at least addressed thisquestion, and related ones such as a "hospitality"to "hearing" (heroushdren) and "distinguishing"

(unterschejden) (Nietzsche, Die frohliche Wis-senschaft SS9-60, no. 334).

43 C. Geertz, Available Light: AnthropologicalReflections on Philosophical Topics ix.

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friese

Heiiirun FrieseLausitzer Str. 7D-10999 Berlin

GermanyE-mail: hfriese(§ehes».fr

James KeyeEuropean University InstituteDepartment of History and CivilizationVia Boccaccio 1211-50133 FirenzeItalyE-mail: iames.keye@iue.it