Working Against and With the State: Hospitality from Sanctuary to Resettlement

Abstract

For at least three decades, a tiny number of Canadian church congregations have provided sanctuary to failed asylum seekers. For even longer, many faith-based groups (among others) participate in resettling refugees through a government program called private refugee sponsorship. Both sanctuary and sponsorship practices arise as specific responses to practices of exclusion and inclusion under national migration regimes. Each may be understood as modes of hospitality. Sanctuary engages members of individual church congregations in oppositional politics, whereby they confront and challenge state authority to exclude. Refugee sponsorship embodies a form of collaborative politics, in which sponsorship groups partner with government in settlement and integration. Through interviews with individuals who participated in sanctuary and in sponsorship, we explore the perceptions of people who provide both. We observe how the state’s perspective on asylum versus resettlement structures the form of hospitality and the character of the relationship between citizens and the state, and between citizen and refugee.