080092 SE Hospitality and Ethnography in Austria (2010W)

Hospitality is an ancient tradition in many societies and cultures, more revered in some than in others. This value has also moral centrality in some religions and is seen associated with the compassionate treatment of strangers. Practices of hospitality reflect historically differing ideas and notions of and the everyday relationship with the stranger. They encompass an understanding of solidarity, of proximity and distance, private and public, inclusion and exclusion, and they relate to the basic rules of social interaction in a given society.
The course aims at studying the various facets of hospitality in Austria and the Middle East by exploring culturally constructed meanings of hospitality rituals in countries of both geographical regions and by examining symbolic performances of hospitality between hosts and guests. The exploration of hospitality in a variety of countries will also be linked to the construction of ethnic identity and the self. (together with Prof. Mohammed Shunnaq, Yarmouk University, Jordan)