This research project explores the concept of welcome experienced by refugees when entering Scotland/UK. The UK has recently seen an increase in refugees entering the country due to ongoing conflicts around the world. This has led to a growth in awareness, understanding and reflection on the response to refugee engagement on personal, political and business levels as well as a growth of 3rd sector agencies and volunteers who work directly with refugees as they enter a new destination.
Drawing on sociological and philosophical understandings of hospitality, the authors view interactions, as Dufourmantelle (2013) suggests, as a social tissue, where encounters with the Other and the acceptance or tolerance of otherness can take place under the conditions of hospitality. Derrida’s (1999, 2005) conditional/unconditional understanding of hospitality argues that hospitality is ethics and this is how we practice relations of difference and construct an understanding of self. More recent texts on the hospitality experiences of displaced individuals refer to a contentious form of hospitality which places political contention, hospitality and the concept of home in relation to mobilities and migration (Merikoski, 2021).
Primary research will be collected through semi structured interviews to understand perceptions of staff and volunteers from 3rd sector agencies and individuals with experience of hosting refugees. Themes such as reciprocity, belonging, interactions, expectations and community will be discussed to develop an understanding of how refugees are ‘welcomed’ to Scotland/UK. While this project is in its early stages, initial findings are adding value to the understanding to a contemporary challenge within society and how this may progress according to political and sociological viewpoints.