Sanctuary Practices in International Perspectives examines the diverse, complex, and mutating practice of providing sanctuary to asylum-seekers. The ancient tradition of church sanctuary underwent a revival in the late 1970s. Immigrants living without legal status and their supporters, first in the United Kingdom, and then in the US, Canada, and elsewhere in Europe, have resorted to sanctuary practices to avoid and resist arrest and deportation by state authorities. Sanctuary appeared amidst a dramatic rise in asylum-seekers arriving in Western countries and a simultaneous escalation in national and international efforts to discourage and control their arrival and presence through myriad means, including deportation. This collection of papers by prominent US, European, Canadian, and Japanese scholars is the first to place contemporary sanctuary practices in international, theoretical, and historical perspective. Moving beyond isolated case studies of sanctuary activities and movements, it reveals sanctuary as a far more complex, varied, theoretically-rich, and institutionally-adaptable set of practices.

Table of Contents:
Foreword (William Walters);Introduction: Sanctuary across Countries, Institutions, and Disciplines (Randy K. Lippert and Sean Rehaag);I. Sanctuary Perspectives: historical, theological, legal, theoretical; Sanctuary for Crime in the Early Common Law (Karl Shoemaker); I took up the case of the stranger’: Arguments from Faith, History and Law (David H. Michels and David Blaikie); The Potential of Sanctuary: Acts of Sanctuary Through the Lens of Camp (Agnes Czajka); Sanctuary sans frontières: Social movements and solidarity in post-war Northern France (Naomi Millner); Part II. Sanctuary Movements and Practices in the United States: Old and New; Legacies and Origins of the 1980s US–Central American Sanctuary Movement (Hector Perla and Susan Bibler Coutin); The Voice of the Voiceless: Religious Rhetoric, Undocumented Immigrants and the New Sanctuary Movement in the United States (Marta Caminero-Santangelo); I didn't know if this was sanctuary’: Strategic adaptation in the U.S. New Sanctuary Movement (Grace Yukich); Part III. Sanctuary Movements and Practices in Europe and Canada: International Comparative and Case Studies: Holy territories and hospitality: Nordic exceptionality and national differences of sanctuary incidents (Jill Loga, Miikka Pyykkönen and Hanne Stenvaag); The Rise and Features of Church Asylum in Germany: ‘I will take refuge in the shadow of thy wings until the storms are past’ (Wolf-Dieter Just); Ethnography of Relationships among Church Sanctuary Actors in Germany (Hiroshi Oda); The Emergence of the Ontario Sanctuary Coalition: From Humanitarian and Compassionate Review to Civil Initiative (Hilary Cunningham); Religious sanctuary in France and Canada (Caroline Patsias and Nastassia Williams); Part IV. Emergent Realms: Cities of Sanctuary and Military Sanctuaries, Everyday Enactments of Sanctuary: The UK City of Sanctuary Movement (Jonathan Darling and Vicki Squire); The Birth of a Sanctuary-City: A History of Governmental Sanctuary in San Francisco (Peter Mancina); The City as a Sanctuary in the United States (Jennifer Ridgley); Seeking sanctuary in a border city: Sanctuary movement(s) across the Canada-US border (Julie E.E. Young); Framing Militant Sanctuary Practices in Afghanistan and Iraq, 2001-2011 (Michael A. Innes)