Hospitality: Becoming 'IDPs' and 'Hosts' in Protracted Displacement

The paper engages with Jacques Derrida’s writings on ‘hospitality’ to discuss how, in a situation of protracted displacement in Sri Lanka, policy categories interact with local categories to make particular understandings of ‘internally displaced persons’ (IDPs) and their ‘hosts’. Using the notions of conditional and unconditional hospitality, the paper first shows the political and ethical principles underpinning local and international humanitarian discourses and practices for dealing with internal displacement. Second, the paper analyses how the two categories of IDPs and hosts emerge, are negotiated and redefined by looking at the hospitable engagements between the two groups. The paper analyses how hospitality operates and governs the relationship between IDPs and hosts and consequently shapes particular identities and rights. The paper concludes by indicating the need to encompass both different international humanitarian approaches and local approaches in dealing with internal displacement.