Paper long abstract:

This paper examines the extensively debated existence in Corsica of a "law of hospitality" which extends notably to those who have fallen foul of the Law. This social practice, objectified in different ways by the French media, Corsican nationalist pronouncements and classical anthropological texts, becomes in itself a way of separating Corsicans from non-Corsicans. The paper revisits classic functionalist accounts of hospitality as a way of managing difference, in a situation where difference is no longer embodied primarily through the encounter of two people ('host' and 'guest'), but is already distributed across multiple spaces and different media.

Paper short abstract:

Fanta Orange for the Ancestors: Ingesting the 'Mad' Stranger in Southwest Madagascar

Paper long abstract:

In this paper, I will focus on the underlying strategies and symbolic implications of hospitality cultures and practices in South-West Madagascar. I will focus in particular on the ongoing contact between and co-presence of Western strangers (tourists, anthropologists, conservationists, development cooperants, missionaries) and the heterogeneous populations living in Madagascar's Menabe coastal area. I will argue that from a Madagascan coastal community perspective, these foreigners are usually seen as 'mad'; they manipulate complicated truth machines (computers), drive motor engine cars, fly planes like birds, have little respect for ancestors and fady, protect seemingly worthless 'stones' (corals), have powerful doctors, know important Malagasy politicians, and dispose of seemingly endless economic resources. In this context, linking in with the world of these 'mad' strangers, by wearing their cloths, by imitating their behaviour, by fetishizing drinks like Fanta Orange during ancestor rituals, seems to become a means to appropriate this 'madness' and make it work for personal or collective local agendas. The paper hence demonstrates that hospitality towards Western strangers - and I include here for instance the local participation in (modernist) environmental protection programmes run by Western strangers - manifests less a cultural involution, impact or acculturation to Western values then an active strategy to make strangers and their power work for diverse local agendas (among whom, in the Madagascan context, to solve the fishing crisis and the problem of the 'reversal of the sea' (coral bleaching)).

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Paper short abstract:

The paper is based on site observations and focus group interviews conducted with local people in thirteen villages in Viengxay.

Paper long abstract:

The inhabitants of the remote and poor region of Viengxay in Laos have not traditionally been accustomed to receiving tourists to their villages. Only recently has a small trickle of adventurous tourists begun to appear, but tourism is expected to increase in future years due to international organisations' development projects in the area. The proposed paper will discuss the emerging practices of hospitality towards these tourists by the local people. These practices are influenced by many factors, including local traditions and etiquette, the area's long history of geographical and political isolation and war, and individual and societal perceptions and aspirations regarding tourism and tourists. Though there is a tendency to perceive and treat tourists as guests in the village, locals are beginning to realise that tourists are a special kind of guest that may require a different type of hospitality. Attitudes and behaviour towards tourists are also changing due to increasing contact with foreigners and the outside world and evolving expectations regarding the tourism industry. The paper will examine how these various factors interact and conflict in the formation of hospitality practices. The paper is based on site observations and focus group interviews conducted with local people in thirteen villages in Viengxay.

Paper short abstract:

This paper summarises the origins of western monastic hospitality, illustrates how it influences modern civic, commercial and domestic practices and reports on an empirical investigation into contemporary monastic hospitality.

Paper long abstract:

Research into the phenomenon of hospitality continues to broaden through an ever-increasing dialogue and alignment with a greater number of academic disciplines. This paper reports on an investigation into the hospitality offered by Benedictine monasteries and demonstrates how an enhanced understanding of hospitality can be achieved through synergy between social anthropology, philosophy and practical theology. All monastic hospitality takes its direction from St Benedict's Rule (530 AD); this foundational document became the basis of all western European religious hospitality. During the Middle Ages the western monasteries (as well as being the custodians of civilisation, knowledge and learning) had provided detailed and formalised rules for religious hospitality, the care of the sick and the poor, and responsibilities for refugees. The Protestant Reformation (c 1540) was to have a transforming affect on religious hospitality. Hospitable activities became separated from their Christian ties as the state increasingly took over more responsibility for them, although they adopted the principles of hospitality that had already been established within the monastic tradition and are still evident in civic, commercial and domestic hospitality.

The empirical information on contemporary monastic hospitality presented in this paper was gathered by living in the monastic cloister with the monks themselves, sharing their day, their life, and their work. During the research it became clear that within the environment of the monastic community hospitality provision is extremely complex, there was a hierarchy of guests within the monastery and differing levels of hospitality provision. The research highlighted the use and division of space for the monks and their guests, types of accommodation, inclusion and exclusion, hospitality rules and rituals and the dichotomy between the social and commercial manifestation of hospitality within the monastery. The paper concludes by observing that the prima-facie purpose of a monastery is not to offer hospitality, it is to house the monks in a community environment so that they can dedicate their lives and live their vocation to the service of God. The Rule is clearly of the utmost importance to the running of the monasteries, however an element of change has been necessary to ensure the continuing survival of the monastery and its hospitality provision. Within the monastic community hospitality and the ritual reception of guests and the provision of hospitality play an important role by being both the bridge and the barrier between the monastic and secular worlds.

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Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the relationship between space and hospitality in both its social and commercial forms.

Paper long abstract:

Recent years has seen growing interest among social scientists and management academics in the complex relationship between social and commercial forms of hospitality. Within this emerging body of work, the physical, symbolic and abstract dimensions of space have been examined from a diverse range of perspectives. This paper builds on and advances this emerging body of research by reconsidering the relationship between space and hospitality in both its social and commercial forms. It examines the ontological nature of space and hospitality, and uses the emerging conceptual themes to explain how hospitable spaces are produced and consumed. The discussion examines the complex and often contradictory relationship between commercial and social manifestations of hospitality. Moreover, I consider the ways in which hospitability manifests itself in particular moments and locations, and how expectations or perceptions of hospitality and hospitable relationships may be perpetuated over time and in the production of abstract, symbolic and material space.

E-paper: this Paper will not be presented, but read in advance and discussed

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