Hospitality and its Ambivalences: On Zygmunt Bauman

Hospitality is often understood as an ethical openness towards the other. Hospitality, in this way, is a gift. But is this really the situation of hospitality in the world today? Europeans have created another, bespoke hospitality and they insist on being given a generous welcome all over the world — colonialists, imperialists, businessmen, tourists, scientists and students. Europe is too small for the Europeans: the world is their oyster. Yet in that oyster, hospitality is more often the cause of problems than the solution. In the following article, I will elaborate on this critical idea of hospitality as it is understood in the works of Zygmunt Bauman.