Reading Derrida in Tehran: Between an Open Door and an Empty Sofreh

Abstract

Abstract:We can only begin to grasp hospitality as we enact it and yet, in the moment of enactment, hospitality eludes us. In this paper I look at the enactment of hospitality in the relationship between Iranian citizen-hosts and Afghan refugee-guests in the Islamic Republic of Iran, in order to reflect more broadly on questions of Derridean hospitality. Moving between the theoretical and the ethnographic, I forcefully bring to bear on a situation of protracted refugee displacement, a notion of hospitality that has, to a large extent, remained abstract and unanchored. The scalar shifts between the domestic and the national (so integral to Derrida's theorising of the hospitable), are here reproduced in an examination of Iranian hospitality that simultaneously considers the juridical framework of asylum in the Islamic Republic and the domestic or homely expression of welcome, that occurs in the ushering of the guest over the threshold and the sharing of food around the sofreh.

Cultural semantics of the ‘salt’ word in Persian

“…There is, in fact, a network of meanings in the domain of Persian hospitality where namak and other related concepts play a crucial role in the universe of Persian cultural meanings. The folk conceptualization of hospitality as a Persian/Iranian virtue has been studied before (e.g., Conway, 2009;Houston, 2009;Matthee, 2009;Mehran, 2019;Yarbakhsh, 2018;Zonis, 1971). There are certain key symbols in this context, such as the sofreh (roughly, 'tablecloth') and 'the open door' (Yarbakhsh, 2018).…”

“…The folk conceptualization of hospitality as a Persian/Iranian virtue has been studied before (e.g., Conway, 2009;Houston, 2009;Matthee, 2009;Mehran, 2019;Yarbakhsh, 2018;Zonis, 1971). There are certain key symbols in this context, such as the sofreh (roughly, 'tablecloth') and 'the open door' (Yarbakhsh, 2018). Sofreh was (and to some extent still is)…”

“…The concept of namak reveals an important aspect of Persian sociality, hospitality, mutual respect, and playfulness. In a linguaculture that values sociality, being together, and hospitality (see Mehran, 2019;Yarbakhsh, 2018), the Persian conceptualization of the word for salt (namak), as discussed in this article, plays an important role in the perception of cultural interactions, mutual respect, and pleasantness.…”

Afghan Migrants in Iran

“…Only a few Afghans were accommodated in refugee camps because most of them spread throughout the country and lived amongst the local community and only less than 5% lived in refugee camps. 4 Afghans were welcomed by the government of Iran for a religious (and economic, too) reason (Yarbakhsh, 2018). This was the "open door" policy on the Iranian side (Esfahani, Hosseini, 2018), especially that the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini in 1982 said: "We are Muslims, they are Muslims, too.…”