Sanctuary

Abstract

Over the last decade, sanctuary has been evoked as an alternative to the problems associated with an exclusionary statist asylum regime. In Canada, the United States, and Europe, a “cities of sanctuary” movement has emerged, articulated through various political vocabularies. This movement conceives of sanctuary not simply as a church-based site where asylum seekers may be secured but offers a host of welcoming practices within and beyond cities. This article specifically explores the UK-based City of Sanctuary movement, with a focus on the case of Glasgow, which has widely been read as exemplifying hospitality toward an empowerment of asylum seekers. It has been argued that while a statist discourse of fear—a “politics of unease”—posits migrants as a threat to be policed, the City of Sanctuary stimulates a softer approach. Yet, this article illustrates how the City of Sanctuary is also mobilizing a deeply troubling “politics of ease.” Based on an ethnographic investigation, I show how a politics of ease renders intractable the serious problem of protracted waiting that many controls many asylum seekers. In doing so, I demonstrate how the seemingly hospitable City of Sanctuary in fact contributes to a hostile asylum regime by indefinitely deferring and even extending a temporality of waiting.