The Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs and the Yale Department of History will host the next installment of its Spring 2026 Lecture Series on Statelessness in the Modern World with Laura Madokoro, history professor at Carleton University.

Sanctuary has a long and storied history, one that has taken many shapes and forms over the years. On the surface, the relationship between sanctuary and statelessness, the condition of being without legal status, may not seem obvious. However, histories of statelessness are much more complex than a simple binary between citizen and stateless.
Rather, there are all kinds of gray areas in the making and undoing of conditions of statelessness. Sanctuary represents one of these gray areas. In seeking to explore the relationship between sanctuary and statelessness, this talk focuses on the question of time: how it is used, understood, and exploited in various sanctuary contexts. By considering the issue of time as a substantive factor in the making, shaping, and experience of refuge, this talk suggests a close relationship between sanctuary, state power, and statelessness and associated histories of agency, resistance and refusal.

For more information on the series, email Jackson professor Laura Robson at laura.robson@yale.edu.