Breaking with the law of hospitality? The emergence of illegal aliens in Europe vis-à-vis Derrida’s deconstruction of the conditions of welcome

In two seminars published under the title De l’hospitalité/Of Hospitality (J. Derrida [1997] 2000) and in other writings too, Jacques Derrida invites his readers to consider some differences between ‘conditional hospitality’, that is ‘the right to or pact of hospitality’ on the one hand and ‘the absolute or unconditional hospitality’ on the other. By emphasizing the incommensurability between the two in antinomic terms, Derrida has indeed questioned established practices of welcoming foreigners while insisting on a sense of hospitality that is not bound by and to its immediate legalisation. The following article will attempt to trace the limits of Derrida’s deconstruction of the conditions of welcome by arguing that for those estimated millions of people who are commonly dismissed as illegal aliens in liberal democratic states, such as in Europe, to ‘break with hospitality in the ordinary sense’ is not just a hyperbolic ethical imperative – it also feels like a bleak verdict. Otherwise said, what is the potential use value of Derrida’s thinking of a transgressive hospitality given the evidence that far too many are actually living in extremely inhospitable situations in European liberal democratic states without being able to rely on a bare minimum of legal standards?