Hospitality is society

This article focuses on two aspects of critical hospitality studies, as outlined by the editors of Hospitality & Society – hospitality work and hospitable spaces. The former is explored via a recent UK reality television series, Michel Roux's Service, in which a group of young people were trained in front-of-house service work. Here the discussion is framed by accounts of 'new work' and aesthetic labour. Hospitable spaces are discussed in terms of interpersonal encounters in public space, informed by Erving Goffman's symbolic interactionist perspective. The aim of the article is to examine these two sites of hospitality conceptually, in order to think about the different 'work' that hospitality performs, in both formal and informal settings. In so doing, the article draws on interactionist, relational and affective perspectives to explore some of the myriad ways in which hospitality is society.