Rescaling hospitality

Abstract

AbstractAs demonstrated in an ethnographic description of displaced Syrians living in Gaziantep, Turkey, hospitality fails when it is captured by a state that transforms ethical‐religious duties into legal obligations. Indeed, Syrian “guests” cannot reciprocate state hospitality because they do not belong to the same scale; moreover, they refuse their guest status, claiming to be refugees and thus subjects of law rather than favor. This scalar confusion also puts Turkish locals in a delicate position, since hospitality's very purpose is defeated by the rescaling of duty‐based hospitality and the state's injunction that locals play host to displaced Syrians. The rescaling of hospitality and the confusion of its moral, religious, and legal registers thus alienate local hosts and guests, creating hostility, as hosts and guests characterize each other as “bad.” Eventually, hospitality's dead ends lead Syrians to aspire to become refugees, to imagine new migratory horizons, and to follow novel routes to living with dignity.