Abstract

This paper develops a new understanding of hospitality on the basis of an anarchist philosophy of cosmopolitanism. It is argued that anarchism – in its radical critique of the principle of sovereignty and sovereign ipseity – is primarily a philosophy and politics of hospitality. The argument proceeds in five key steps. Firstly, the relationship between ontological anarchism (Schürmann and Levinas) and political anarchism (Bakunin, Kropotkin, Proudhon, Godwin) is explored. Secondly, anarchism’s critique of nation state sovereignty is linked to a radical cosmopolitanism based on cross-border solidarity, mutual aid, and human rights activism, including the defence of the rights of migrants and asylum seekers. Thirdly, I show how the anarchic subject cannot be reduced to a fixed or definable identity with closed borders, but, rather, embodies an attitude of hospitality towards the Other and an openness to being transformed by this encounter. On this basis, I aim to develop an anarchist ethics formulated around the idea of care – for the other, both human and non-human, for the world, for the natural environment (Four) – and an alternative cosmopolitan ethical and political horizon (Five).