We Were Invited to Friendships Lived Hospitality
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
KAIA S. RØNSDAL We were invited to friendships Lived hospitality DOI: https://doi.org/10.30664/ar.92002 Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) his article explores hospitality in relation concerning what voices, bodies and prac- to migration within the framework of spa tices make up the critical counter-power, tial theory and calling. The material of the T and where it is rooted. Such strategies are article is based on fieldwork carried out in the Nordic borderlands and conducted in relation to characterized by collaborations focused on a research project exploring Nordic hospitality. subject-to-subject relationships between The concept and context of the borderland, as the researcher subject and research field, well as the methodological development of this including the space in which the research project, are based on spatial theory, phenomen ology and theology. The material discussed are takes place. The article is not aimed at doing excerpts from a small fieldwork narrative about empirical analysis of data to make certain borderland experiences, and interviews regard truth claims concerning migration issues. ing events that took place on the Russian–Nor Rather, the aim is to use excerpts from two wegian border during the socalled refugee crisis in 2015–16. The article aims at, by means of these of the respondents’ short narratives, the narrative excerpts, exploring how conceptualisa researcher subject’s experience, and reflec- tions of hospitality, by discussing them in relation tions on the local migration crisis, as well to the concept of calling from Scandinavian cre as the events’ cultural and historical con- ation theology, may contribute to extensions of text, to discuss conceptualizations of hos- both concepts. pitality. The discussion takes place within the framework of spatial theory primar- Introduction ily in the tradition of the French sociolo- The article explores the conceptualizations gist Henri Lefebvre (2003 [1970], 2007 of the notion of hospitality, based on short [1974], 2008 [1961]), and calling in the excerpts of fieldnotes from fieldwork car- tradition of Scandinavian creation theol- ried out in North Norway in 2017–18. The ogy, linking this to embodied spatial call- cited field narrative and interviews regard ing. Furthermore, the spatial theory relates understandings and experiences of hospi- both to the emphasis on the lived encoun- tality in the region as a borderland, mean- ters in the research strategy, as well as the ing here an area in close vicinity to interna- theoretical framework. tional borders, actualized by the so-called refugee crisis of 2015–16. The article relates Space and hospitality to work exploring decolonial research The very short introductory version of strategies (cf. Lid and Wyller forthcoming), Lefebvre’s theory of the production of space Approaching Religion • Vol. 10, No. 2 • November 2020 20 (2007 [1974]) in this context is that space 2009 (van Houtum and Boedeltje 2009). is to be understood in an active sense as an We all know that following the events of intricate web of relationships that is contin- 2015 this quote is outdated, and with the uously produced and reproduced. Spaces current situation in Greece and Turkey, are formative. This spatial analysis thus including now the impact of the COVID- concerns active processes of social pro- 19 virus, we may be standing at the thresh- duction. In the context of [Nordic] bor- old of yet another transhistorical number derlands, then, both the dis-placed and the of deaths on our shores and along our bor- ‘placed’ are all producing space, and that ders, as ‘sovereign states claim monop- space exists from the moment of social oly control over the mobility of people’ encounter. (Chattopadhyay 2019: 150). The interpretations of space are con- Every day the news is filled with human nected to the relationships between three tragedy at or near borders. There is, per- different analytical levels – the perceived, haps not surprisingly, rather little of any the conceived and the lived – and how counter-narratives; the human encounters, changes occur in the interplay between openings and possibilities that also make all the levels of space. A space is constant- up life at the borders. ‘B/ordering separates ly in motion, always different, always being but also brings together. Respectively, bor- moved forward – the world is moved ders are open to contestations at the level of forward by contrasts, contradictions and the state and everyday life’ (Chattopadhyay tensions (Lefebvre 2007: 42). Space is to be 2019: 151). understood less as something that is, but as something we do, or in the interpretation Border encounters of Kirsten Simonsen, space is a verb rather The material of the article is based on field- than a noun (Simonsen 2010: 45). work from the Nordic borderlands, con- This is where I am concerned with hos- ducted in relation to a research project pitality; this is my starting point: in the exploring Nordic hospitality.1 The concept spaces that occur when humans encounter and context of the borderland, as well as the each other. Furthermore, when I discuss methodological development of the project hospitality it is not in church or politics, but is based on spatial theory, phenomenology in spaces of civil society, where people are, and theology. where life is lived, and where they interpret Border situations need to be empha- and understand hospitality. I always start sised as ‘radical stages of relations’ (Agier in the lived, in the embodied, as humans 2016: 23). The shift of the borders to are situated bodies. Whilst, furthermore, becoming a relational arena has signifi- understanding them not only as situated, cance for how we approach the migrant but also as a situation, the meaning of the as a concrete and embodied human being, body opens up in the process of creating rather than homo sacer, a mere biologic al meaning (Nahnfeldt 2016: 66). fact (Agamben 1998), ‘abandoned to the So, let us start with a quote: ‘The number of unauthorized migrants who have died attempting to cross the borders to Europe 1 ‘NORDHOST: Nordic Hospitalities in the Context of Migration and Refugee Crisis’, is transhistorical and has reached frighten- a project financed by the UiO: Nordic, one ing heights’ (Chattopadhyay 2019: 157). of the University of Oslo’s interdisciplinary This quote is citing an article written in strategic research areas. Approaching Religion • Vol. 10, No. 2 • November 2020 21 unconditional power of the sovereign’ non-encounter, is often not interpreted as (Katz 2017: 2). This is explored through a space and is sometimes referred to as a bottom-up insights developed for events in ‘nonspace’ to illustrate this. Borderlands or the Nordic borderlands. border spaces may also be such non spaces, The empirical, ‘from below’ and enacted as the encounters there are rarely the main and lived encounters belong to post-colo- object of interest. Furthermore, such non- nial traditions, challenging and reconfig- spaces may be counterspaces, in that they, uring migration binaries such as guest/ as in Michel Foucault’s (1984) notion of host; victim/agent; villain/victim, etc. (cf. heterotopia, may be different from the Machado et al. 2018). dominant spaces, and through their very I aim at showing and discussing how differences thus direct criticism towards hospitality may take the concept of calling society, threatening the general discourse from Scandinavian creation theology, and and challenging the ethical discourse. They become an interesting and fruitful exten- are also rich and complex social spaces. sion of both concepts. Thus, the border situation also pushes refu- Traditional notions of both hospital- gees and migrants to ‘reshape their lives in ity and the concept of calling may become order to … give them a new form in a new passive, as binaries such as guest and host place. [Creating a] complex and multifac- are traditionally seen as pre-determined eted flow of migrants who actively resist the and set. I aim to argue that hospitality may restrictions imposed on them’ (Katz 2017: be pinpointed as a pre-reflexive action, thus 13) by biopolitical ordering and border challenging the possible rigidity of the roles sovereignty. and their binary aspect. The premise here is that there are ways In Lutheran theology ‘calling’ is the of discovering the calling, and that we name for the task, God-given to humans, meet in the calling as equal bodies with of taking responsibility for each other. The pathos, provided that it is something we responsibility is founded on an idea about are affected by (Waldenfels 2011: 27), pro- humans’ co-creating missions and adds voking the sense of something ‘done to us’ a sacred dimension and ethical value to (Waldenfels 2007: 74). Who calls and who interpersonal encounters and practices responds is not something decided before- (Nahnfeldt 2016). Cecilia Nahnfeldt points hand, it is unclear and open, and so are the out that openness to calling entails being premises of the spaces themselves. prepared for disruption in the calling. She who is attentive to her fellow human does The Arctic route2 not decide the time and space for the call- In 2015, around 1.3 million people crossed ings. It is about letting oneself be inter- the borders of Europe (Pew Research Center rupted, and to bear seeing or daring to receive an opening (ibid.). 2 The following account builds on news art- The calling thus bears the character- icles from local, national and international istic of disruption or an encounter; it also broadcasters in 2015 and 2016, non-aca- takes place in the minor encounters in demic and academic publications, as well lived spaces, such as the fleeting encoun- as the informants of this project. I have included the details necessary to contextu- ter between a beggar and a passer-by in a alize the chapter.