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At Home in My Enemy’s House: Israeli Activists Negotiating Ethical Values through Ritualized Palestinian Hospitality

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

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Type

Article

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Authors

Mautner, Ori 

Abstract

Engaged Dharma Israel (EDI) activists resist their state’s occupation of West Bank Palestinians by offering them solidarity and support. Whereas most Israelis consider such Palestinians’ houses unsafe, EDI participants “feel at home” when acting as polite guests there, experiencing the hospitality of their politically subordinate counterparts as poignant. Such activists value intimacy—crossing boundaries between self and other on both personal and national levels—which they substantially realize during their visits. However, they also seek to promote Israelis’ and Palestinians’ mutual autonomy, an often-competing value that the visits likewise help effectuate. These capacities of hospitality result from its ritualized nature—namely, its tendency to follow conventional scripts that do not require certain inner states (e.g., sincerity). Hospitality can therefore be usefully approached as a ritualized arena that enables people to promote multiple values that are culturally central for them, including ones frequently found in tension. Anthropologists can benefit from tying the political inequalities and complexities that characterize hospitality to its capability to work out and negotiate participants’ plural ethical commitments.

Description

Keywords

4401 Anthropology, 44 Human Society

Journal Title

American Anthropologist

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0002-7294

Volume Title

Publisher

American Anthropological Association
Sponsorship
ESRC (ES/W006030/1)
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