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Society for Cultural Anthropology
Oral Presentation Session
Meyda Yegenoglu
Researcher
Tampere University
Inspired by Jacques Derrida’s deconstructive approach, my paper focuses on the renewed Islamophobic and Orientalist response to the presence of Muslims in Europe, who are regarded to be invading Europe. How can we re-think a democratic Europe that does not depart from its tradition and yet remains heterogeneous to that tradition and history? My paper explores whether this ‘new Europe-to-come’ can be re-thought and re-envisioned with the notion of unconditional hospitality in the wake of growing Islamophobic reaction against the Muslim refugees. I suggest that ethical hospitality can become the ground of a renewed political imagination. Such a new ethical and political imagination entails thinking Europe’s relation to its past, memory, and tradition. To attend the heterogeneity of European tradition, a deconstructive gesture requires an engagement with the history of colonialism and its convoluted relationship with racism and Orientalism.