Hospitalité et régulation de l'altérité dans l'Antiquité méditerranéenne

This collection originated in an international conference organized at Lyon (ENS de Lyon, U. Lumière Lyon 2 and Jean Moulin Lyon 3) on September 5-7, 2018, as part of a research project led by the editors since 2015 at the ENS de Lyon (HospitAm, Hospitalités dans l’Antiquité méditerranéenne). It offers a global perspective on a cultural practice shared by the civilizations of the ancient Mediterranean basin: hospitality.

We define hospitality as a form of reception, including board and lodging and free from expectations of payment, that frequently accompanied mobility. More than an easy recourse for travelers looking for accommodation, in the ancient Mediterranean hospitality was a social relationship in its own right, framing relations with the “other”, often associated, in ancient societies, with the stranger. This book aims to explore the crucial role of hospitality during the “ordeal o otherness” (A. Gotman) caused by temporary or longer-term mobility, from Mesopotamia in the 2nd millenium BCE to Italy in Late Antiquity. 

With that objective in mind, this book proposes to study hospitality through the lens of regulation. Borrowed from the social sciences, regulation invites us to think about hospitality as a mechanism that allowed ancient societies to manage the integration, marginalization, or rejection of outside individuals or groups, in order to re-establish the equilibrium disturbed by their arrival. Four lines of inquiry run through the contributions to this volume: the laws, codes and rules of ancient hospitality; their practical application in relations between hosts and guests; attempts to negotiating or circumventing those rules; finally, the material aspects of the regulation of hospitality and regulation through hospitality.  Comparative and interdisciplinary perspectives give a wider relevance to this study of the regulation of otherness, which can be understood as a constant in human hospitality practices.