The Southern United States Sanctuary Lab: Mapping, Soundscapes, and Strategic Sovereignty

How do movements build power, survive repression, and create alternatives during a global authoritarian turn?The Southern United States Sanctuary Lab: Mapping, Soundscapes, and Strategic Sovereignty is an interactive, participatory workshop that explores this question through the experiences of communities across the United States South. Together, participants will examine how Black, migrant, Indigenous, and working-class communities are confronting surveillance, militarization, climate injustice, displacement, and systemic violence while building community-led alternatives rooted in solidarity, collective care, and self-determination. In the midst of rising authoritarianism, the workshop highlights how communities are not only resisting oppression but also creating alternative ways of living together through building neighborhoods and institutions grounded in mutual aid, democratic participation, shared stewardship of land, and collective safety.