Give Refuge to the Stranger: The Past, Present, and Future of Sanctuary

Review "Linda Rabben has written a profoundly human and inspiring work that explores in personal, historical, and anthropological terms the motivations that lead ordinary people to provide sanctuary to people fleeing violence, upheaval, and persecution. Rabben looks beyond law and politics to find the human connections that inspire people to open their doors and their arms to welcome and embrace the homeless wanderer. In the face of rising xenophobia, eroding asylum space, and closing doors to asylum seekers, Rabben reminds us that the spontaneous and unregulated urge to provide sanctuary for refugees is part of our DNA, and will survive as long as we do."- Bill Frelick, Refugee Policy Director, Human Rights Watch"Why should human beings give refuge to the stranger? How is it that we so often refuse those in greatest need - and in the process abuse, imprison and deny legal support to them? Linda Rabben confronts us with the shameful evidence of the way the public policy of the US, the UK and other developed nations has legitimated the mistreatment of asylum seekers and undocumented migrants. She confronts those of us who are citizens of the world\'s liberal democracies with one of the urgent questions of our time, \'What are you going to do to ensure a welcome for the stranger?" - Nicholas Sagovsky, Visiting Professor, Formerly Canon Theologian, Westminster Abbey"Sanctuary for the threatened and suffering is a powerful possibility rooted in human nature, one that surfaces across cultures and throughout history. Yet this basic quality is often neglected or dismissed. Give Refuge to the Stranger brings forth our capacity to provide refuge, in clear and vivid prose, with convincing evidence and capable anthropological analysis. As we become more aware of our best possibilities, we become more capable of acting fully on them. " - Josiah Heyman, University of Texas at El Paso"That we need to give shelter to persecuted others tells us something quite negative about our species; but that we do, and have always done so, also offers hope. It builds on the best in human nature. Linda Rabben employs passion and detailed research to explain how we are uniquely equipped for border-crossing empathy."— Frans de Waal, author of The Age of Empathy"Linda Rabben’s politically and morally-engaged account of asylum processes in North America and Europe differs from other studies of this contentious policy issue in two important ways. First, she sets the 1951 Refugee Convention, and its increasingly mean-spirited application by recent European and North American governments, into historical context by describing the forms of refuge offered to outsiders by societies from classical Greece right up to the present. Second, she focuses on the civil society groups and non-governmental organizations which provide support to would-be refugees; advocate for improvements in their treatment; and even, in some cases, draw upon ancient notions of religious sanctuary as an effective means ofcombating the negative stereotypes which the term ‘asylum seeker’ has increasingly come to evoke. Her lively mixture of historical narrative and first-hand ethnographic observation on two continents should help alert a wider public to the widespread official mistreatment of vulnerable victims of political, religious, ethnic, and sexual persecution."— Anthony Good, University of Edinburgh“This well researched book uses personal testimony and international examples to show how countries have dealt with the influx of asylum seekers throughout history. This book is a very good example of critically engaged anthropology, raising numerous questions worth researching further in specific contexts. Rabben is undoubtedly highly qualified to write this book. She is an anthropologist and long-term human rights activist, who considers the need to protect the vulnerable as a very basic and universal human sense of moral solidarity. "It's in our DNA", she says several times through the