Repository logo
 

At home in my enemy's house: Israeli activists negotiating ethical values through ritualized Palestinian hospitality

Published version

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Repository DOI


Change log

Authors

Abstract

jats:titleAbstract</jats:title>jats:pEngaged 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 jats:italicintimacy</jats:italic>—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 jats:italicautonomy</jats:italic>, or nonintervention in each other's personal and communal affairs, 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, or culturally valorized ideals, including ones frequently found in tension. This ability of hospitality to work out and negotiate participants’ plural ethical commitments is embedded in the power dynamics and political inequalities that normally characterize hospitality events.</jats:p>

Description

Funder: Cambridge Trust; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100003343


Funder: Kenneth Lindsay Scholarship

Keywords

4401 Anthropology, 44 Human Society

Journal Title

American Anthropologist

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0002-7294
1548-1433

Volume Title

Publisher

Wiley
Sponsorship
ESRC (ES/W006030/1)