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.