Transformative Hospitality: A Pragmatist-Feminist Perspective on Radical Welcome as Resistance

In this paper, I explore a concept of transformative hospitality as a kind of political resistance. Some habits of hospitality merely reinforce our inclinations to turn inward to tight circles of likeminded friends, to gatekeep, and to preserve hegemony. But hospitality at its best—which welcomes outsiders not as subjects of charity but as ethical agents and knowers—troubles the dualism of the host/guest relationship. It can be mutually transformative, can build empathy across difference, and can make space for creativity and social change. Jane Addams and Grace Lee Boggs are examples of people who embody a sort of hospitality which is philosophically grounded, practically fruitful, and politically subversive, helping to support a pragmatist-feminist model of transformative hospitality. Further, I introduce Steinar Bryn’s concepts of “meeting points” and “unconditional spaces” as ways to work toward practices of transformative hospitality.