In Sanctuary Everywhere, Barbara Andrea Sostaita reimagines practices of sanctuary along the U.S.-Mexico border in order to explore the possibilities for radical fugitivity in the face of militarized border enforcement. After the 2016 presidential election, churches, universities, cities, and even states began declaring themselves sanctuaries. Sostaita proposes that these calls for expanded sanctuary are insufficient when dealing with the everyday workings of immigration enforcement. Through fieldwork in migrant clinics, shelters, and the Sonoran Desert, Sostaita demonstrates that, as a sacred practice, sanctuary cannot be fixed in any one destination or mandate. She turns to those working to create sanctuary on the move, from a deported nurse offering medical care on the border to incarcerated migrant women denying rules on touch in detention facilities to collectives set up to honor those who died crossing the border. Understanding sanctuary to be a set of fugitive practices that escapes the everyday, Sostaita shows us how, in the wake of extreme violence and loss, migrants create sanctuaries of their own to care for the living and the dead.

About the Author
Barbara Andrea Sostaita is Assistant Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of Illinois Chicago.

Reviews
"Sanctuary Everywhere is a subtle and insightful exploration of the sacred that moves discussions of 'sanctuary' toward new intellectual and physical spaces to reveal its unexpected fugitive dimensions. An illuminating book not only for students of the immigration and sanctuary movements, but also for those pondering the meaning of the sacred in an unjust world." -- Mayra Rivera, author of * Poetics of the Flesh *
"In this captivating and impactful book Barbara Andrea Sostaita conceptualizes the tradition of sanctuary in more expansive terms than usual. Suggesting that sanctuary is not a place but a fugitive practice, Sostaita invites readers to see sanctuary in spaces and practices far beyond those places, like houses of worship, that have long been designated as sanctuaries and into the lines of communication among detained migrants and the loving ritual of planting crosses where people perished. This singular book will make a splash!" -- Karma R. Chavez, author of * The Borders of AIDS: Race, Quarantine, and Resistance *



Book Information
ISBN 9781478026365
Author Barbara Andrea Sostaita
Format Hardback
Page Count 224
Imprint Duke University Press
Publisher Duke University Press
Weight(grams) 476g