Hospitality as Living Heritage: Migrant Heritage-Making, Belonging, and the Cultural Politics of Welcome

Abstract

This article conceptualizes hospitality as a form of living heritage through which migrants and refugees preserve cultural practices, negotiate belonging, and reshape relations of welcome in receiving societies. Drawing on Walker and Avant’s concept analysis approach, literature from heritage studies, migration studies, hospitality, tourism, sociology, and intercultural inclusion was reviewed and thematically synthesized. The analysis identified four core dimensions of hospitality as living heritage: cultural rootedness and heritage transmission, relational care and reciprocity, adaptation and negotiation across contexts, and intercultural connection and belonging. These dimensions are shaped by migration and displacement, collective memory, experiences of exclusion, and opportunities for intercultural encounter. The findings position migrants not only as guests or recipients of support, but as active hosts, heritage makers, and contributors to social cohesion. By linking hospitality, living heritage, and the cultural politics of welcome, this article offers a conceptual framework for understanding how everyday practices of care, sharing, and reciprocity sustain cultural continuity and foster belonging in migration contexts.