L’accoglienza di migranti e turisti come specchio dell’ospitalità in Sardegna. Solidarietà spontanea, ricezione turistica e gestione dei flussi migratori in una prospettiva antropologica.

This thesis aims to investigate the relational practices implemented by the ‘native’ population of Sardinia towards ‘foreigners’ through the lens of the theme of hospitality. The choice to focus on hospitality derives from the observation that it constitutes a recurrent cultural trait in narratives about Sardinia both in self- and hetero-produced representations. Moreover, hospitality could be considered one of the mechanisms used to distinguish between insiders and outsiders when issues of identity are at stake. Starting from multi-year ethnographic research conducted in Sardinia and characterised by an interdisciplinary, diachronic, and comparative approach, I attempt to detect the gap between the ‘attitude of being hospitable’ towards outsiders and the practices that characterise the phenomena of tourist reception and migrant welcoming. Although these practices cannot be traced back to a purely local dimension, the modalities and discourses through which ‘Sardinian hospitality’ manifests itself towards the ‘new’ types of otherness have brought to light the heuristic value of the notion of hospitality as a “total social fact”. By bringing together different levels of cultural intimacy, power and gift, the practices associated with hospitality towards the main protagonists of contemporary mobilities have, indeed, the capacity to bring out the political, cultural and identity conceptions that rule Sardinian society.