Whose Land Have I Lit on Now? Contemplations on the Notions of Hospitality

The series brings together SAVVY Books and Archive Books in a collaboration based on the shared interest in a multiplicity of knowledges beyond the Western canon and a commitment to foster critical discussions and forge new collaborations and coalitions. We like to think of the books in this series as “borderlands,” to use an expression by Chicana poet and feminist Gloria Anzaldúa, by which we mean spaces where “a new story to explain the world and our participation in it” can be elaborated and told; spaces where epistemological disobedience (Walter Mignolo) and divergent thinking can be practiced.    Man of misery, whose land have I lit on now? What are they here—violent, savage, lawless? or friendly to strangers, god-fearing men?    Odysseus upon his return to Ithaca (13.227-29)    The unlikely seemed possible in the summer of 2015, as thousands of immigrants from mostly Syria made their way to Germany and Angela Merkel made the statement “Wir schaffen das” (We can do it/ we can cop