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Beyond Sanctuary

The Humanism of a World in Motion

Beyond Sanctuary cover image Read the Introduction

Book

Pages: 384

Illustrations: 19 illustrations

Published: August 2025

Editors: Ananya Roy and Veronika Zablotsky

Contributors: Leisy J. Abrego, Damon Azali-Rojas, Amy Sara Carroll, Sharad Chari, Nicholas De Genova, Ricardo Dominguez, Lorgia García-Peña, Sarah Haley, Gaye Theresa Johnson, Moon-Kie Jung, Maria Kaika, Kyle Mays, Saree Makdisi, Charles Sepulveda, SA Smythe, Vanessa E. Thompson, Charalampos Tsavdaroglou, João H. Costa Vargas, Rinaldo Walcott, and Maite Zubiaurre

The contributors to Beyond Sanctuary examine how the liberal democracies of the West recognize and include racial others through technologies of state power that promise but rarely grant sanctuary and refuge. Conceptualized at a time of resurgent white nationalism, this volume critically interrogates not only right-wing xenophobia but also the liberal ruse of asylum and its place in Western humanism. Drawing on the liberatory histories and countercartographies of migrant movements and the intellectual traditions of the Black radical tradition, Indigenous studies, postcolonial thought, and critical refugee studies, the contributors analyze the colonial-racial logics of humanitarian reason and its carceral geographies of camps and crossings. Whether analyzing guerrilla art projects that memorialize female migrants who died crossing the US-Mexico border, schools for undocumented students, housing solidarity movements in state-run camps in Greece, or transnational struggles for abolition, this collection foregrounds ideas and practices of fugitivity and freedom that refuse and reworld the West.

Contributors. Leisy Abrego, Damon Azali-Rojas, Amy Sara Carroll, Sharad Chari, Nicholas De Genova, Ricardo Dominguez, Lorgia García-Peña, Sarah Haley, Gaye Theresa Johnson, Moon-Kie Jung, Maria Kaika, Saree Makdisi, Kyle T. Mays, Ananya Roy, Charles Sepulveda, SA Smythe, Vanessa E. Thompson, Charalampos Tsavdaroglou, João H. Costa Vargas, Rinaldo Walcott, Veronika Zablotsky, Maite Zubiaurre

Praise

"Beyond Sanctuary is a remarkable work of collective scholarship. Together, the essays provide an expansive account of the idea of sanctuary as it intersects with concepts such as imperialism, cosmopolitanism, racial capitalism, and much more. This collection does a tremendous job of putting different standpoints and theoretical traditions into an original and productive conversation that will be valuable for radical academics and organizers." - Karma R. Chávez, author of The Borders of AIDS: Race, Quarantine, and Resistance

"Beyond Sanctuary is a wonderful read that presents unparalleled contributions around the impossible possibility of sanctuary. The essays come together in a generous, incisive way, carefully tracing the ethical and political demands of migrant movements. This is a book that will stay with us for a long time: it offers key insights and asks powerful questions that grant new points of reference for students, scholars, and organizers working on asylum regimes and politics across the Atlantic." - Michele Lancione, author of For a Liberatory Politics of Home

"Engaging a spectrum of critical race, Indigenous, refugee, border, anti-Zionist, and postcolonial theories, this volume considers how liberal democracies include and exclude what they term as racial others and how they perceive it is possible to transcend globalized, seemingly intractable social, cultural, political, legal, and bureaucratic infrastructures preventing liberty, sanctuary, and acceptance. Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty." - R. A. Harper, Choice

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Author/Editor Bios Table Of Contents Rights Additional Information Funding Information

Author/Editor Bios

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Ananya Roy is Professor of Urban Planning, Social Welfare, and Geography at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Veronika Zablotsky is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at Freie Universität Berlin.

Table Of Contents

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Foreword. Sanctuary Politics and the Role of the University in the Time of Trumpism / Ananya Roy and Maite Zubiaurre  ix
Introduction. Beyond Sanctuary: The Humanism of a World in Motion / Ananya Roy and Veronika Zablotsky  1
Interlude. Asylum At the Borders of Humanitarianism / Ananya Roy  41
Part I. Abolition on Stolen Land
1. This Is an Incitement: Abolition on Stolen Land / Gaye Theresa Johnson and Damon Azali-Rojas  45
2. Beyond the Social Death of Conquest: Kuuyam and Healthy Human-Land Kinship(s) / Charles A. Sepulveda  59
3. Killing the Dead: Genocide and Antiblackness / Moon-Kie Jung and João H. Costa Vargas  77
4. From Minneapolis to Dessau, from Moria to Tripoli: Breathing, Resistance, and International Pathways of Abolition / Vanessa E. Thompson  96
5. Abolition Is My Sanctuary: A Love Letter to Freedom / Lorgia García Peña  116
Interlude. Abolitionist Practice: Bringing Our Imagination to Life / Veronika Zablotsky  131
Part II. The End of Humanitarianism
6. “Mujer Migrante Memorial (MMM)” and Necro-Art / Maite Zubiaurre 135
7. From Camp to Commons: Infrastructures of Decolonial Solidarity in Europe / Charalampos Tsavdaroglou and Maria Kaika  155
8. Humanitarian Racism / Saree Makdisi  176
9. trans/BORDER/ing (an un-play 4 accompaniment) / Amy Sara Carroll and Ricardo Dominguez  196
10. Postcoloniality, Race, and the Ruse of Asylum: An Interview with Nicholas De Genova / Ananya Roy and Veronika Zablotsky  214
Interlude. Sanctuary and Solidarity: Resisting the US War on Refugees and Migrants / Veronika Zablotsky  231
Part III. Freedom and Fugitivity
11. Fugitive Relation and Errant Social Reproduction: A Note / Sarah Haley  235
12. An Oceanic International in Catastrophic Times / Sharad Chari  249
13. Black Mediterranean Freedom Dreams / SA Smythe  266
14. Dispossession and Its Aftermath: The Sites of Black Indigenous Fugitivity / Kyle Mays  294
15. Freedom’s Revenge, or, Toward Liberation / Rinaldo Walcott  309
Interlude. Codeswitch: The Transborder Immigrant Tool / Veronika Zablotsky  323
Conclusion. Sanctuary and the Praxis of Solidarity / Gaye Theresa Johnson and Leisy J. Abrego  325
Acknowledgments  341
Contributors  343
Index  353

 

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Open access was made possible by support from the Ideas and Organizing project at the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy funded by the Marguerite Casey Foundation.