Migration and the opening of societies

The 21st century's second decade comes to a close amidst seismic political and cultural turbulence. The variations on conflict across the globe spell out an undeclared World War III. Forced migrations on an unprecedented scale have displaced and disoriented millions of people across the world, who must recraft their lives in refugee camps, through the kindness or against the suspicion of strangers. Environmental devastation and the degradation of natural cycles has produced another kind of dislocated person: the ecological refugee who seeks a new home in urban settlements.

How do host societies address these challenges of the present? What can the ethic of hospitality mean in the face of such crisis, and how do societies commit themselves to retaining an openness of perspective when such crises also promote the most xenophobic and hyper-nationalist reactions to the 'outsider'?

ILIJA TROJANOW, novelist, essayist and widely travelled commentator, will be in conversation on these issues with Ranjit Hoskote, poet and cultural theorist.