These dynamics are further complicated when "guests" are also migrants and workers in exploitative sectors of the economy. Thinking about the long-term effects of such relations of moral authority can offer a new way to understand the limits of humanitarian approaches to governing “others.”
The article describes these "waste donations" as an unusual form of hospitable giving: the host offers the guest something only a specific kind of guest would want, something the host considers worthless. It suggests that hospitality relies on hosts retaining moral authority over guests.
During my fieldwork I found that shopkeepers preferred to give to migrants who were humble and clean and who didn't make trouble. Sometimes they preferred workers from one specific country. In all cases, they thought that giving out waste like this helped poor people who were in a foreign country.
I have a new article in Cultural Anthropology @culanth.bsky.social
It looks at shopkeepers in Istanbul who donate recyclable waste to certain irregular migrant workers in their neighbourhoods. I analyse this as a novel form of hospitable giving.
journal.culanth.org/index.php/ca...
Happy to see this article of mine published. Based on research in Istanbul’s recycling sector, the article looks at how Turkish scrap dealers accuse migrant waste pickers of taking recyclable waste without engaging in real trade, portraying them as economically illegitimate and morally suspect.
