Everyday Hospitality and Politics

Abstract

The article explores everyday hospitality and politics through inclusive forms of integration initiatives in everyday life and urban communities in Denmark and Norway. It investigates how local initiatives and creative social strategies by local actors can empower and include refugees and immigrants in local communities. This article is based on participant observations of urban communities in Denmark and Norway working to welcome refugees and create new cross-cultural meeting places. We argue that people mobilize and take action when faced with emergency, and that the many welcome initiatives organized around theatre, food, dance and music can rework difference. The cases relate to the discussion of hospitality, the production of meaningful meeting places in a local context and the embodied encounters promoted by these activities. This article discusses everyday hospitality and politics in light of the transition in the Nordic welfare states, which has made the debate around inclusion of refugees and immigrants in local communities and the welfare state centre.

Keywords

• hospitality
• encounter
• welfare state
• integration
• embodiment