A alma do hostel: dinâmica das interações humanas no contexto hosteleiro de Belo Horizonte - Minas Gerais

Abstract

This research aims to: understand how the interactions between hosts and guests are established in hostels in Belo Horizonte-MG, identify motivation and perceptions of these subjects regarding accommodation meanings and also investigate how leisure practices are manifest in those contexts. The methodology, of a qualitative nature, involved field research in three hostels in the city of Belo Horizonte, which were selected according to previously stipulated criteria. In addition to the observation strategy, semi-structured interviews were carried out with 24 subjects, being 18 guests and 6 hosts. The collected data were systematized and analyzed using the content analysis proposed by Bardin (2011), this technique has been complemented and enriched with the help of the Nvivo software. The research results showed that human interactions in hostels are the foundation for mobilizing experiences within the investigated spaces. The relationships between guests and hosts are woven through affective bonds, friendship, retribution and learning, thus triggering a daily flow of new praxis and plots associated with leisure and hospitality. A manifestation of leisure could also be evidenced when subjects mentioned conversation generated during their stay in the hostels. It was based on parties, celebrations and various forms of sociability and experiences, including the consumption of practices considered illegal, such as the use of marijuana. The predominance of domestic hospitality, combined with commercial hospitality, revealed the hybridity of the phenomenon in the investigated context, making it possible to broaden the discussions on the subject, given the embryonic debate regarding the manifestation of the gift in commercial contexts. The hosts interviewed believe that the treatment performed at the hostel is associated with their hospitable profile, either as a professional and/or as a person, revealing their predilection and vocation for serving, as well as hospitable personality traits. This highlights the essential role of hosts for Making a genuine hospitality in hostels possible, not only being reduced, therefore, to a mere scenic exercise in this context. The perception of the hostel as a “home” is recognized by both hosts and guests, as well as the possibility of meeting and identifying the motivation and perceptions of these subjects in relation to this means of accommodation and investigate how leisure practices are manifest in these contexts, with different people and cultures, which are constituent aspects of the subject’s motivation in relation to this type of accommodation. However, this scenario is not free from tensions, conflicts and paradoxes, indicating that the main ones refer to noise, the disorder verified in the bedrooms and kitchen, difficulties related to the collective use of the bathroom, nudity and sexual intimacy that conflicts with the privacy, especially in shared rooms, causing discomfort and embarrassment for some guests and challenges for the hosts. It is concluded that human interactions in the hostel context are carried out by guests and hosts, who, subjectively, experience and liven up daily dynamics cs of a hostel through countless practices and endless experiences.