The Discourse of Guesthood: Forced Migrants in Jordan

Refugee Hospitality in Lebanon and Turkey. On Making ‘The Other’

“…As such, the hospitality discourse has remained inscribed in – and has further fed – the identity politics generally characterizing the region. If marking newcomers as “guests” on a private and a public level is a causative act of social labelling, labelling tacitly opens “a space of competition between the guest, the citizen, the refugee, [and] the immigrant” (el‐Abed, : 82).…”

“…Humanitarian assistance provision has often been associated with hospitality. During emergency crises, in fact, hospitality has often served as a public discourse (el‐Abed, ) for “measuring” and assessing either the host's generosity or hostility; this discourse has therefore embedded local populations in a generosity‐hostility dichotomy. The “mediatisation” of hospitality is no exception in the Middle Eastern context, as it makes ‐ among the several cultural identities populating this area – “Arab hospitality” a national public virtue (Shryock, : 60).…”

“…In this framework, the hospitality discourse that local people developed in response to official crisis management more neatly polarised two populations whose lives, due to a common political economy, cultural history, and family ties, were enmeshed while sharing the same public and private spaces. In this sense, the discourse of hospitality paradoxically ended up heightening local “anxieties about the Other” (el‐Abed, : 89): The rights, empowerment, and temporal duration of the Other have come to be socio‐moral threats within the host society.…”

“…The hospitality discourse typifies Erdoğan as one of the Middle Eastern leaders who assumes the role of guardianship protecting “suffering Muslims” as well as other religious communities in the name of Islam and Islamic brotherhood. Erdoğan's leadership evokes the legacy of the late Jordanian King Hussein Bin Talal who, according to el‐Abed (), established a direct link between the hospitality offered to Palestinian refugees and the Islamic history of hijra , the migration of Prophet Muhammad and his followers from Mecca, the Islamic holy city, and the major site of pilgrimage ( hajj ), by drawing on his own lineage to the noble Sharif family from Mecca.…”

Syrian Refugees and Cultural Intimacy in Istanbul: 'I Feel Safe Here!'

“…Syrian refugees have been considered as "guests" by the Turkish, Lebanese and Jordanian states. From the very beginning of the refugee plight, Syrians have been presented as if they are 'welcome' by the host states and societies on the basis of some deep-rooted values such the 'Turkish hospitality', 'Muslim fraternity', 'Arab hospitality ' and 'guesthood' traditions (De Bel-Air, 2006;Pérouse, 2013;Chatty, 2013;El Abed, 2014;Kirişçi, 2014;Erdoğan, 2015;Erdoğan and Kaya, 2015). The reason why Turkey is trying to define the Syrians in a different legal status is because it continues to have the geographical limitation clause of the 1951 Geneva Convention on the Protection of Refugees.…”