Introduction

This chapter introduces this book’s central focus, core questions, and overarching concepts. It locates the significance of hosting-at-home – that is, people providing shelter in their own home to displaced people with whom they have little or no pre-existing personal connection – as a widespread yet often underexamined response to large-scale displacement around the world. This chapter sets out the core themes explored in this book: the role of hosting-at-home as a form of everyday humanitarianism, the home as a site of humanitarian hospitality, and the implications of hosting-at-home – of everyday humanitarian hospitality – for wider humanitarian politics. This chapter also maps out this book’s methodological approach and introduces its contents.