Hospitality and sovereignty. Political reflections on Jacques Derrida’s philosophy

Abstract

This work examines the links between sovereignty and hospitality and the deconstructive importance of the latter over the former. At first, it would seem that what makes hospitality possible as an effective right is sovereignty; however, following the traces of Jacques Derrida’s philosophy, it is evident that hospitality, since it depends on sovereignty and on the right assumed by the States to make it effective, is constantly postponed and perverted. There is a productive link between hospitality and sovereignty, exalted by the classical political theory, which should be «denaturalized» on behalf of hospitality, that is to say, on behalf of an infinite justice towards the other as radically other.