Choosing to Receive: Hospitality, Xenophobia, and the Ethics of Living Together

Author : Bruna Kadletz

Abstract : In a time marked by anti-migrant rhetoric, border control, and the normalization of exclusionary violence, this paper proposes hospitality as a situated practice and ethical–political response to contemporary politics of hostility. Rather than approaching migration through the dominant logics of control, and crisis management, the paper foregrounds place as a relational and transformative site where alternative forms of knowledge, solidarity, and resistance emerge in the Global South and can be cultivated. Drawing on the lived practice of Círculos de Hospitalidade, a grassroots organization working with migrants and refugees in south Brazil, the paper conceptualizes hospitality not as an abstract moral ideal or charitable gesture, but as a daily, imperfect, and embodied practice. It argues that hospitality unfolds through interconnected stages: receptivity; intercultural engagement; reflexive attention to who we become in the act of receiving; and collective action. Through this lens, hospitality operates simultaneously as method, pedagogy, and ethos. The analysis moves between macro-level dynamics—such as hardening migration policies, epistemic injustice in migration and the desensitization of public discourse—and micro-level encounters of reception, and care. A situated narrative vignette illustrates how everyday practices of hospitality disrupt dominant narratives of illegality and threat, while avoiding romanticization or instrumentalization of migrant experiences. By engaging critically with place-based practices of care and solidarity, the paper contributes to broader conversations on spatial politics of belonging, and practices of prefiguration and resistance. It ultimately suggests that, in times of xenophobia and systemic cruelty towards migrants, hospitality constitutes a form of quiet yet radical resistance—one that reorients how we live together and invites us to ask not only who arrives, but who we become when we choose to receive.

Keywords : Hospitality as resistance in migration politics and place-based care

Conference Name : International Conference on Migration, Health and Social Protection (ICMIHSP - 26)

Conference Place : Geneva, Switzerland

Conference Date : 10th Apr 2026