Zufluchtsorte

Sanctuaries are political spaces. Particularly in regions heavily affected by environmental destruction and historical violence, sanctuaries function as sites of social selection, where access to safety and rescue is not arbitrary but guided by economic and political considerations. The calculation of emergency lay-bys on highways, the authorization of industrial and military infrastructures, or the recognition of victim status and need for protection all follow a logic of survival and letting die. In this essay, Laurin Mackowitz examines sanctuaries as border spaces in which social inequality, ecological destruction, and historical violence intersect with a politics of withdrawal and immunization. Drawing on historical, literary, and contemporary sites of refuge, the essay demonstrates the spatial configurations in which threat and retreat, fear and security, victimhood and refuge mutually reinforce one another against the horizon of social and ecological crises. At the same time, the essay shows that sanctuaries may also be understood as utopian remnants before a dystopian horizon and be conceived as sites of reflection, reconciliation, solidarity, or resistance.