The Hospitable South: Cultural Myth and Religious Practice in a Southern Community

• In Event: 341 - Section on Sociology of Religion Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 01. Religious Organizations

Abstract

In this paper I address the cultural myth of Southern hospitality. I review the historical origins of hospitality on antebellum plantations and engage with theoretical distinctions that have been made between hospitality as discourse and hospitality as practice. Drawing on ethnographic data from an ongoing community study in Rockdale County, Georgia, I illustrate that the discourse and practice of hospitality in the community are meaningfully connected to another aspect of Southern culture for which the region is widely known: religiosity. I argue that the cultural myth of a hospitable South is continuing to be maintained through religious discourse and practice in the local community and discuss implications for further theorizing the politics of hospitality not only in the Southern United States but in other parts of the world as well.

Author

• Betsie Garner, University of Pennsylvania