Caroline Humphrey (University of Cambridge)
Impersonality and Tone: The Affectual Dimension of Hospitality
Prescriptions in Mongolia
In social theory detachment is often treated as illusory and/or abstract, as theoretical, and thus disregarding of embodied existence and the diversity of experienced affect. This is to neglect that forms of detachment emerge historically and can become embedded and positively charged in society. My paper suggests that the norms of hospitality in Mongolia are one such form, involving the substitution of spontaneous interactions by valued but highly impersonal courtesy. In practice, however, this form of detachment does not eradicate affect but on the contrary creates it, as well as enabling emotional modulations, which I analyse through the concept of ‘tone’.
