From an Ethic of Hospitality: Reflections on Democracy, Citizenship and Migrations

Abstract

The article focuses on a reflection about hospitality, thought from inhospitable experiences and aimed at critically rethinking the reactions to the underprivileged, the pilgrim, the migrant, from the assessment of host actions, the ethics of care and the irruption of otherness. It proposes going beyond the observation of data: migratory flows, xenophobic reactions or associated criminal forms and interpreting them from a constructive approach to conflicts, the demands of an inclusive citizenship and the rethinking of the axes of democratic life. Based on the thinking of D. Innerarity, the article associates the ethics of hospitality with the ethics of care, solidarity and life and poses it as a useful tool for dealing with the migratory flows of the Mediterranean and Latin American Space. From an approach of vulnerability situations associated with migrations, the possibilities of empathy, prudential reason and the demands of effectiveness from a bioethical and biopolitical perspective that emphasizes the priorities of action before life at risk are addressed.