Hostipitality—Pretendians in the Host and Guest Matrix

Abstract

The paper examines the phenomenon of Pretendians within the framework of the discourse of hospitality, as proposed by Jacques Derrida and Gayatri Spivak, following the trajectory of the host vs. guest (stranger) positions as they have shifted between Native Americans and Euro-Americans. Pretendians have been observed across multiple spheres of life and studied extensively as subjects of interest, scrutiny, and criticism. Legitimate Pretendians are welcomed by the nations they aspire to join, whereas racial impostors are either detribalized or denied enrollment. These outcomes often stem from issues related to colonialism, tribal sovereignty, or questions of propriety. The former group encounters hospitality, while the latter provokes hostility—or hostipitality, a term reflecting an oscillation between the two elements of this portmanteau. The negative emotions are ascribed to the imposition of the rules of hospitality by the current host of the US, which is interpreted as a self-colonizing factor, undermining Native American integrity as peoples who have a special status in the USA. The author explores how changing historical circumstances, from the precolonial period to the present day, have shaped these attitudes. The shifting host-foreigner paradigm between Native Americans and settlers, alongside various policies, has created fractures in identities and relationships, ultimately creating conditions in which Pretendians might have appeared, as it turns out, not only in the United States and Canada. The paper argues that the discourse of hospitality provides a nuanced framework for understanding Pretendians and the reasons for hostipitality towards them.