COVID and the invisible war: is this the end of hospitality?

Abstract

The recent virus outbreak resulted from SARS-COV2 {[}coronavirus disease] not only has been a serious blow to the Western social imaginary, likely affirming a tendency ignited just after 2001 to the self-cannibalization - or at the best the end of hospitality as we know it -, but also disposed of the body as a potential killer who affects the public health. As this paper shows, the old dichotomy revolving around a desired tourist who is an agent of wealth production and globalization and the undesired migrant has been blurred. Now the global tourist is widely seen with some mistrust, as a potential enemy who may place the societal order in jeopardy. Like the war against Cancer in 1970s decade, the war against the local crime in the 1980, or the war on terror just after 9/11, now the world has declared the war against a virus. In this new world, the sacred law of hospitality is basically revisited according to the passage from an absolute to an unconditional hospitality {[}a-la Derrida].