The stranger defines what is a society, its limits, who belongs to it, its supposed cultural characteristics. The stranger is the barbarian that defines the civilized by what it is not. S/he does so, not necessarily by speaking out, not by writing laws or essays, but by his or her sheer presence. The stranger is the one whose very existence triggers the right questions.
In recent years I have become convinced that a society’s constitution, its most central values on which the legal and political system lies, are determined to a large extent by the place given to the stranger. It all started when I heard a friend claiming his right to choose who could live in his country and who could not. After all it was his country and he intended to defend it against possible threats. He accused ‘pro-migration NGOs’, ‘activists’ or ‘leftists’ of being irresponsible immature people who did not foresee the probable dangers that the immigrants would bring to Malta. For my friend, activists were children, idealists, hippies totally inexperienced in matters of foreign diplomacy. They had grand and generous ideas (which he claimed to share « in principle »), but no practical sense, and indeed he asked: « why are they not taking them to their own house, if they like them so much? » « Them » referred to something vague, a group of indistinct people, which were usually imagined to be poor, coming from the African continent without a visa, and male. The powerful figure of the stranger which in those days had replaced the equally threatening previous figure of the male Turk or of ‘L-Gharbi’ (usually referring to Libyan nationals) whose legends of kidnapping young women were still told to children to this day. Undeniably the image that my friend’s question brought was reproducing a well established fear of male pirates invading Maltese houses and abusing women. « Stranger is Danger », as the teacher had warned my daughter at her school.
I took the question not just as a rhetorical one, and it proved to be a central concern for many Maltese, one that encompassed the well-known figures of collective memory, and the particular importance of domestic privacy in Malta, embodied by women; but it was also one that encapsulated for many Maltese what ultimately lies behind the word immigration: the eventuality of a face to face encounter with a stranger at the threshold of their home, a stranger that they would need to welcome or to reject. This eventuality would be repeatedly talked about in cafés and read in newspaper articles and social media. It would also be repeatedly rejected by pro-migration people as just another racist fear professed by ignorant people. A question not worthy of an answer by individuals tired of having to constantly defend the universal right of asylum. From my part, I kept thinking that somehow this vivid reaction could be questioning the essence of what migration is: a question of hospitality. The question was in fact not only one of demagogues, but also one that philosophers discussed.
For Socrates or for Derrida, the stranger’s exteriority conditions him or her to question the necessary arbitrariness of the social order s/he is invited in. In their perspective, the stranger, xenos, is as much a philosopher as s/he is a threat to the authority, both figures being often the same thing. In the Sophist, Socrates welcomes a nameless stranger and offers him to take the central place of the philosopher, discussing with the audience present the politics of the ideal state. Socrates remains totally silent, leaving his usual role to the nameless stranger who will deconstruct the definition of good governance which his interlocutors had taken for granted. In so doing the stranger is here offering a fresh view on the polis by revealing its pitfalls and its problematic foundations, thus challenging political authority.
Recognizing that the stranger is a potential threat is not saying that s/he is an evil person but simply acknowledging his or her agency, individuality and knowledge. Now the host must be prepared that his or her order of things will be challenged by the guest. Yes, strangers are bringing new ideas and new practices to the democratic debate and this is precisely why there are needed.
The whole issue then is to enable this necessary conflict of opinion to emerge in a somewhat lively but peaceful process, one in which both host and guest are finding common ground to discuss and succeed in finding a third way that will establish the conditions of living together, until maybe the stranger becomes a host, or until s/he leaves to explore other places.
In my work as artistic director, how could I address this situation within the frame of an artistic and anthropological project? On what kind of situation could our little team of artists and anthropologists focus their efforts to bring about the rich complexity of hospitality?
For this project I thought the situation of Filipino care-workers could be interesting. The fact that these women were living most of their time with their aged and physically challenged employer was the first obvious reason. It was taking seriously my friend’s provocation, challenging the activists to take foreigners into their own home. This unusual situation would probably reveal the tensions inherent in hospitality, and could bring to the debate on migration the questions which we need to ask to reinvent a better society for all. For instance, it brought back the previously mentioned position of Socrates who leaves his place as the philosopher of the group to an unknown stranger. In doing so, Socrates situated the stranger as part of the knowledgeable people worth listening to. But he also clearly demonstrates that dialogue is the most appropriate form for philosophy and apprenticeship, since a conversation cannot take place unless we first call the stranger in to the collective discussion. Any discussion about the possibility of hospitality thus begins with the question: is the stranger allowed to challenge the order of things? And do we consider the stranger as a knowledgeable person?
These are a highly political questions but politics can also be found in the mundanity of our domestic lives. For example, the same questions could be translated in practical terms such as: does a carer have the professional authority to propose new practices which she considers beneficial for her employer? Is she allowed to suggest a change to the routine of the employer, change the place of the utensils in the kitchen, propose improvements in the settings of the house? Is she allowed to cook dishes she knows but which are foreign to the employer/host? In a nutshell, is she recognized as a professional, fully capable and independent in her decisions? Does her opinion matter as much as that of her host an employer? Is there a dialogue between carer and the person she takes care of, or is she only listening to the often long litanies of her host?
For the Greeks (Payot 2015), the relation between stranger and host was regulated via the presence of the omnipotent gods who in the first place had decided for the encounter to occur. Following the gods’ desires, the stranger was welcomed according to particular rituals. Food was offered by the host to the gods, thus sealing the pact. Moreover the guest was to offer something in exchange, like stories of his or her travels, or news of the outside word. Hospitality thus followed the universal laws of reciprocity, which were regulated by rituals and guaranteed by the authority of gods. In this sense, hospitality was not dual but between three entities: guest, host and gods. A third party was required to institutionalize the encounter thus providing a common safe frame for dialogue.
I take as a universal fact that for any negotiation to be possible, a common basic understanding must be reached in order to establish communication. A code of law can help, but sometimes a shared code of politeness is enough. In the story of Socrates and the stranger, it must be noted that before beginning the debate, the stranger asks first to agree on the general rules of a dialogue, which should be friendly. Similarly the hiring of the services of Filipinos care workers raised the question of the type of system that would serve as the basic code of conduct to frame relations between guest and host, between carer and employer. The labour code or the family code could possibly provide the frame for the encounter, with the state or the family as the third party. The participants of this project were sometimes integrated into their host family as a new unofficial family member. The carers could call their employer with a kinship term such as ‘mama’, ‘mother’ or ‘papa’, ‘father’… reciprocally they would be addressed by their employer as ‘my daughter’, or by a nickname denoting the strong emotional tie that connected them with their employer. This setting seems to suit those using it as it provided a common understanding and implied a certain code of rules that was shared by both parties prior to the encounter. The carers felt respected and welcome as much as the employers probably felt that their demonstration of trust would imply a reciprocal care beyond the strict limits of professional duties. After all, the caring gestures had long been circumscribed in Malta within the family circle, and it was therefore only ‘natural’ to adopt such codes of relations especially when the carer was living with her employer.
But of course, the familial system does not always suit the employers and many refuse to use this common language. Some employers keep the legal name of the carer who in return has to address her employer as ‘Madam’ or ‘Sir’. This imposition establishes contractual relationships within an obvious hierarchical frame, one in which trust is limited. This discrepancy in status between the two parties is also revealed in spatial terms. Whereas some carers would call ‘home’ the house of their employer (which is where they spend most of their time and in which they conduct all domestic and everyday chores) some employers reprimand their carers, restating clearly that the carer is to remain totally excluded from the house, even if in practice the employers often disabled and thus in no position to make full use of their house and even if many of the carers have no other house other than that of their employer. The carer is thus relegated to a simple passing visitor with no home to return to.
This is, in effect, a forceful negation of the custodian ownership that the actual practitioner of the house has. An invisible border within the home is thus drawn and maintained through language and repeated reprimands. This violent framework necessarily implies that the carer is not assimilated as a guest and asked ‘to feel at home’, but remains a homeless stranger whose rights could never equalize those of the Maltese. Although the carers are asked to perform caring gestures such as listening to long and demanding rants, waking up at night to assist their employer, or preparing meals to the taste of their employer, their wages and work conditions are not following the Maltese general legal code of labour.
This situation is strikingly similar to the conditions of work and life of asylum seekers in Malta, working and paying taxes, while not receiving adequate retributions from the state nor given equal rights, thus excluding them from the ‘national home’. If the Maltese need these precious workers to build houses, clean offices or wash dishes in restaurants as much as for caring for elderly citizens, these workers are definitively not accepted as part of Maltese society. An invisible border remains even around those living in Maltese homes. The hospitality is here replaced by a managerial use of the strangers for one’s own needs, too often not recognizing the stranger’s rights to have a home and good working conditions. The particular case of the Filipino carers revealed also that the status of migrant is not reserved to male Muslims but could also encompass female Christians replacing what had been for centuries the primary role of daughters. Although not considered as a threat, they are nonetheless often not considered as guests, but as a convenient labour force. To repeat what the American journalist wrote: « they function as what María Ibarra, a professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies at San Diego State University, calls “emotional proletarians”: they “produce authentic emotion in exchange for a wage” » (Aviv, 2016).
I believe that the work of Dr. Orsini and of the artist duo Haritz and Zerrou is an attempt to reclaim the essence of hospitality. Their work has sought to encounter women in their diversity and in their agency. It has brought out many facets of what it is to live in exiled homes. I will only speak about one aspect here which I think is important to understand the mesh of relationships that form their lives and sense of self. In my opinion the collaborative artwork presented in this exhibition demonstrates clearly that Filipino carers belong to the contemporary category of the ‘connected migrant’ as described by Diminescu (2008). Contrary to exiled individuals of the middle of the XXth century that could not maintain regular communication with their beloved ones, the connected migrants of today are maintaining daily contact with their homeland and family network using Information and Communications Technology (ICT). In their majority, the women who participated in the workshops and whose artwork is presented in this exhibition, are mothers or prospective brides, working in order to provide good education for their children or family. They are not lonely souls exiled and disconnected from their loved ones. They are running away from a harsh reality in their native country, but are reproducing a social order they defend with the financial gains acquired in exile. Living in Malta enables them to keep the Philippines economy afloat.
In this perspective it must be noted that the Philippines government has very actively and officially promoted the emigration of its citizens to compensate for the high rate of unemployment of its population. Treaties are signed with governments in order to ease work-migration and thus the legal status of the care-workers is recognized by the host state. They are known as O.F.W., an overseas Filipino worker. The label confers status in the Philippines, which receives more money in remittances than any other country except India and China. ‘Former President Corazon Aquino has praised them as ‘the heroes of our country’s economy’’ (Aviv, 2016). In an article in the New Yorker, Aviv, recalls a Filipina domestic worker thinking that « the culture of remittances breeds political complacency: families of O.F.W.s are less inclined to organize against the Filipino government and protest corruption, because they are shielded by the money sent from abroad, even as their communities remain impoverished. » The interviewee « gets frustrated when she hears policymakers speak of migration as if it were always voluntary » (Aviv, 2016).
Yet notwithstanding this legal status, the exile is precarious and difficult for these women who should benefit from better work and life conditions. The physical separation from their families and friends is further aggravated by the often difficult relations with their employers, work conditions which are conveniently agreed to by both the Philippines and the Maltese governments. Although in Malta, they are entitled to a month paid leave per year, and since till today a minimum wage has been agreed upon (since it is not tagged to the national minimum wage) they are, as we have seen, denied symbolic ownership of the house they take good care of, and denied mutual recognition by some of the employers. These conditions clearly demonstrate that the Filipino care-workers remain simply handy labour, not guests. Their social value stems entirely from the fact that they are English speaking, Roman Catholic, female and cheap labour, that the Maltese state does not need to educate in government schools since they come already trained, already educated, already independent. Their religion and gender also makes them less threatening. A decidedly convenient worker that will not challenge the order of things in Malta, too impatient to send her hard-earned wage to her beloved ones, before she can herself return one day to the Philippines.
Indeed these economic migrants are tied to their far away home; they remain mothers, spouses and daughters and are generally eager to come back to the Philippines or wherever their loved ones are living. The hardship of living in exile is only borne because of the prospect of a return. One is allowed to wonder if they are here or there, or in both countries at once? or maybe in none.
Here a comparison with different migrant situations can help understand contemporary dynamics. Similar to Algerian workers in France, or Turkish workers in Germany, and in order to find a sense of home that is denied to them the Filipino care-workers also spend their only free day within a community of fellow nationals thus retaining few relations with locals outside of daily shopping. However, and contrary to the Algerians of the 1950s, the Filipinas are able to keep a certain control over their relatives abroad, using ICT they know how the money sent was spent, or who is sick today; and most importantly they are able to share daily emotions, moods and small news with their loved ones, they send photos on facebook, see their kids grow etc. They are therefore both here and there, in a ‘double presence’ to counter paraphrase Abdelmalek Sayad (1999) who famously spoke of ‘double absence’ to describe the status of Algerian immigrant workers in France who were absent to the French society as much as to the Algerian one. However Filipino workers also express their extreme frustration and feeling of powerlessness when it comes to comforting hugs for their kids or ill parents, or their impossibility to assist their children in their daily homework. Quickly they understand that instead of spending their free time reading stories to their kids in bed, they will have to give their love and care to the old people they are livings with.
The emotional and economic ties with the original country, or with loved ones who sometimes are exiled themselves, studying or working in yet another country, are establishing a mesh of relations spreading in many directions. Today many migrants are spending time and money in order to maintain these ties, and locking them in the host country under repressive conditions, denying them a home where they are given the same rights as other expatriates, is ignoring this extraordinary wealth of knowledge and the potential exchanges that could benefit us all.
Finally, the complexity of hospitality lies in the fact that although it should strive to be unconditional, total and with no imposed reciprocity, it must nonetheless in practice follow the local laws of hospitality (Dufourmantelle & Derrida, 2000), enforced by an institutionalized third party (religion, state, family) since this is the only way to provide a common base for dialogue. Today, in this globalized world, isn’t it time to listen to what the strangers have to say? Time to look at our own democracies with the help of the foreign philosopher. Time to listen to the women who are patiently caring for the loved ones of others.