Working against and with the State

Abstract

A handful of Canadian church congregations provide sanctuary to failed asylum seekers. Many also participate in resettling refugees through a government program called private sponsorship. Both sanctuary and sponsorship arise as specific modes of hospitality in response to practices of exclusion and inclusion under national migration regimes. Sanctuary engages oppositional politics, whereby providers 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. I demonstrate how the state’s perspective on asylum versus resettlement structures the relationship between citizen and state and between citizen and refugee. I also reveal that there is more collaboration in sanctuary and resistance in sponsorship than might be supposed.