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A contribution to: Writing the Body

Edited by Rachel Hayes and Caitlin Sturrock

MHRA Working Papers in the Humanities 19

Modern Humanities Research Association

Abstract.  Whether it be welcoming a stranger into one’s home or welcoming migrants into a ‘host’ nation, hospitality is traditionally theorised as something that happens externally of the self. As such, less scholarly attention has been paid to the body as a site of hospitality, despite the fact that what enters, leaves, or inhabits the body can be read in (in)hospitable terms. This paper explores how hospitality is mediated through, within, and on the body in Agata, the 2021 photobook by Bieke Depoorter and Agata Kay. I first explore the role of flesh as a home for the self, drawing upon Luce Irigaray’s thinking on self-affection to outline the precariousness of this dwelling for marginalised ‘guests’ in France such as the eponymous migrant sex worker. Next, focusing on flesh as a dwelling for others, I argue that the prominence of wounded flesh in Agata simultaneously evidences and challenges the historic occupation of the naturalised hospitable female body. Finally, by spotlighting the form of Agata, which invites readers to irreversibly open its sealed, Japanese-bound pages, I demonstrate how the photobook itself represents a further body (of work), one whose consumption activates what is at stake in engaging hospitably with others. Namely, I argue that the caress, as a mode of haptic engagement with the visual text, has the potential to facilitate hospitable encounters between the multiple bodies involved in Agata’s production.

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