To the future guests of Lesvos: Hospitality and history among Syrian refugees in Greece

Abstract

Syrian refugees in 2015 in Greece found themselves suspended between a tragedy they had just escaped, and the hope of safety in Europe. While their clothes were still wet from the sea, they were looking forward and planning ahead. In fleeting gatherings at the port or the registration centre, Syrian travellers exchanged advice, debated routes and destinations, and offered tea, fruit and food. In transit, they often became hosts and guests. These roles were interchangeable, yet, through the percolations of advice given and information shared, a Syrian sense of hospitality as collective recognition emerged. Connecting advice, sociality and solidarity, we argue that a different Syrian hospitality than what is usually assumed was at play. The articulation of this hospitality was different to the formulaic, hierarchical or legal prescriptions of honour and status and conflict mediation in which the duplicity of hospitality is encountered. Although at many junctures in their journeys Syrians were made reliant on regimes of ‘protection’ and ‘care’, Syrian travellers actively tried to bypass these by using the sense of hospitality as a ‘Syrian virtue’, as the heuristic of social intimacy and recognition. Through the multi-temporal uses of hospitality, a sense of history and future erupted at a time of danger and anticipation for the journey to follow, forcing Syrians to reconfigure their pasts and futures. In the form of advice given to other Syrian travellers, but also to the anthropologist, this future use of hospitality became a conduit of communication and collective belonging.