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Prejudice & Perception

Xenos: Jacques Derrida on Hospitality

Peter Benson tackles xenophobia with the help of Jacques Derrida and Plato.

Jacques Derrida knew a thing or two about being an outsider. He was born of Jewish parents in 1930 in Algeria, at that time a French colony. Hence he was from birth a French citizen, although he did not set foot in France until he was nineteen. In 1942, by a decree of the wartime Vichy government, his citizenship was revoked because he was Jewish – without him being made a citizen of any other country. The major effect of this was his expulsion from the school he had previously been attending.

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