Manchester University Press
5 Sanctuary artivism
Abstract
This chapter draws attention to a dynamic range of arts-based sanctuary practices emerging across diverse geographies. By explicitly attending to these artful practices, the chapter offers an understanding of sanctuary as more than a sum of government policies and initiatives. More specificallty, the chapter asks: what role do these practices play in constituting and mobilising discourses of sanctuary? The chapter argues that these creative expressions might be collectively understood as ‘sanctuary artivism’. Artivism is politically significant for three key reasons. First, it exposes forms of everyday and ‘slow’ violence often invisiblised through a state-centric lens. Second, by affectively and intimately revealing insidious forms of violence, sanctuary artivism emboldens collective forms of resistance. Finally, sanctuary artivism enacts generative solidarities and modes of citizenship that exceed statist forms of political belonging. Contra a growing body of sanctuary scholarship, the chapter argues that these sanctuary expressions cannot be adequately understood through traditional scales of the city, the nation, or even the planet. Rather, these sanctuary politics are better understood through the register of the ‘global-intimate’. The chapter concludes by calling for a deepened understanding of, and engagement with, the global intimacies of sanctuary artivism as vital components in building more expansive geopolitical imaginations.
Abstract
This chapter draws attention to a dynamic range of arts-based sanctuary practices emerging across diverse geographies. By explicitly attending to these artful practices, the chapter offers an understanding of sanctuary as more than a sum of government policies and initiatives. More specificallty, the chapter asks: what role do these practices play in constituting and mobilising discourses of sanctuary? The chapter argues that these creative expressions might be collectively understood as ‘sanctuary artivism’. Artivism is politically significant for three key reasons. First, it exposes forms of everyday and ‘slow’ violence often invisiblised through a state-centric lens. Second, by affectively and intimately revealing insidious forms of violence, sanctuary artivism emboldens collective forms of resistance. Finally, sanctuary artivism enacts generative solidarities and modes of citizenship that exceed statist forms of political belonging. Contra a growing body of sanctuary scholarship, the chapter argues that these sanctuary expressions cannot be adequately understood through traditional scales of the city, the nation, or even the planet. Rather, these sanctuary politics are better understood through the register of the ‘global-intimate’. The chapter concludes by calling for a deepened understanding of, and engagement with, the global intimacies of sanctuary artivism as vital components in building more expansive geopolitical imaginations.
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of figures vii
- Notes on contributors ix
- Acknowledgements xii
- Introduction – Sanctuary cities and urban struggles 1
-
Part I: Sanctuary cities
- 1 Urban sanctuary in context 25
- 2 Uncovering sanctuary cities 50
- 3 City of hope, city of fear 77
- 4 Toronto’s sanctuary city policy 105
- 5 Sanctuary artivism 131
- 6 Understanding local government’s engagement in immigrant policy making in the US 165
- 7 Resisting the camp 191
- 8 Rescaling citizenship struggles in provincial urban England 217
- 9 Sanctuary, presence, and the politics of urbanism 242
- Index 265
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of figures vii
- Notes on contributors ix
- Acknowledgements xii
- Introduction – Sanctuary cities and urban struggles 1
-
Part I: Sanctuary cities
- 1 Urban sanctuary in context 25
- 2 Uncovering sanctuary cities 50
- 3 City of hope, city of fear 77
- 4 Toronto’s sanctuary city policy 105
- 5 Sanctuary artivism 131
- 6 Understanding local government’s engagement in immigrant policy making in the US 165
- 7 Resisting the camp 191
- 8 Rescaling citizenship struggles in provincial urban England 217
- 9 Sanctuary, presence, and the politics of urbanism 242
- Index 265
