Knowledge and legitimacy in asylum decision-making: the politics of country of origin information

Kist, Jasper van der; Rosset, Damian

doi:10.1080/13621025.2020.1784645

Cited by 15 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…As such, producers and users of country information play a role in consolidating uncertain information into “facts” that serve to alleviate “the undecideability of asylum adjudication” (van der Kist, Djistelbloem, and de Goede 2019). The production of knowledge can also be shaped by state institutions’ interests in maintaining authority and legitimacy when enforcing migration control (Rosset 2019; van der Kist and Rosset 2020). This perspective emphasizes that knowledge is inevitably influenced by the interests and interpretations of the institutions that produce or apply it.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In recent years, some scholars have investigated the role of country information in French and British asylum procedures (Gibb and Good 2013) and its use in collaboration and policy-making in the European Union (EU) (Engelmann 2015). Other studies have investigated the production of country information (Rosset and Liodden 2015; Rosset 2019; van der Kist, Djistelbloem, and de Goede 2019), as well as the different ways in which the producers of country information bolster the public legitimacy of such knowledge (van der Kist and Rosset 2020). The most notable scholarly contribution on the topic is Good’s study of anthropologists who act as country experts in asylum cases in UK courts (2007, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 3 Most countries in Europe have specialized research units that provide country information to asylum decision-makers (van der Kist and Rosset 2020, 664). …”

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confidence: 99%

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The Map and the Territory: The Use of Country Information in Asylum Assessments

Liodden

2021

International Migration Review

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When determining who should be accepted as a refugee, decision-makers use information about asylum-seekers’ home countries to assess the credibility of the claim and the risk of future persecution. As such, country information plays a decisive role in the outcome of asylum claims. Based on asylum case files and interviews with decision-makers in Norway, I investigate the use of country information in the refugee status determination process and compare the specific pieces of country information that decision-makers used in their assessments to landmarks on maps. Landmarks here are understood as decision-makers’ interpretations about places, customs, and political and social conditions in asylum-seekers’ home countries. To come across as credible, applicants had to demonstrate knowledge of landmarks familiar to decision-makers, but they also needed to present a story that testified to their personal experience with the landscape in their home countries. Minor deviations from the landmarks could undermine a claim’s credibility. The metaphor of the map as a seemingly objective representation of reality illustrates the authority of country information in the refugee status determination process. As I demonstrate, however, decision-makers based their knowledge of such landmarks not only on formal sources of information, but also on the narratives of other applicants, assumptions about rational behavior, and their own everyday experience with places. In line with the legal mandate to produce a binary decision, decision-makers had to consolidate uncertain information into solid landmarks that enabled them to clearly distinguish between refugees and non-refugees. Because of their important role in enabling such distinctions, landmarks are key in refugee protection on the one hand and migration control on the other.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Map and the Territory: The Use of Country Information in Asylum Assessments

Liodden

2021

International Migration Review

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“…In this sense, identification ought not be associated only with the state. 6 An emergent trend in migration studies has investigated the artefacts mobilized in the identification encounter at the border (Besters and Brom, 2010;Broeders and Engbersen, 2007;Dijstelbloem and Meijer, 2011;Pollozek and Passoth, 2017;Trauttmansdorff, 2017;Van der Kist and Rosset, 2020). Kuster and Tsianos (2016) have called for analyses that elucidate how databases like Eurodac do borders.…”

Section: Migration Studies Between Identity and Identificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identification as translation: The art of choosing the right spokespersons at the securitized border

Pelizza

2021

Soc Stud Sci

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This article pursues a translational approach to the securitization of migration. It argues that sociotechnical processes of identification at the border can be conceived of as translations into legible identities of individuals who are unknown to authorities. The article contributes to the materiality debate on securitization across Critical Security Studies (CSS) and Science and Technology Studies (STS) by answering the call to conduct empirical explorations of security, and by revisiting the potential of the early sociology of translation (i.e. actor-network theory) to account for the identification of border crossers. Data collection was conducted at four identification facilities in the Hellenic Republic. Three sets of implications for the CSS-STS debate on the materiality of securitization are discussed. First, a translational approach can replace a representational understanding of identity with a performative apprehension of identification. Second, adopting a translational approach leads to acknowledge that the identification encounter is mediated by multiple, heterogeneous actors. It thus helps to open technological black boxes and reveal the key role of material qualities, affordances and limitations of artefacts. Third, a translational approach to the securitization of migration can help advance the field of ‘alterity processing’ by appreciating the de facto re-arrangements of institutional orders elicited by techno-political alignments with global security regimes.

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Asylum Case Adjudication in Sweden, Country of Origin Information and Epistemic Violence

Joormann

2023

Palgrave Socio-Legal Studies

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This chapter on country of origin information (COI) draws on the semi-structured interviews I have been conducting between the years 2014 and 2022 with the responsible decision-makers of the Swedish welfare state: migration court judges. By applying Spivak’s concept of ‘epistemic violence’ in my qualitative content analysis of ten of these interviews, I problematise the COI that judges apply when they adjudicate. The epistemic violence embedded in asylum determination procedures in general is influenced by the institutionalised power imbalance that characterises the Swedish asylum system. The analysis of the corresponding power relations—between people seeking asylum from refugee-sending countries and decision-makers of a wealthy welfare state—leads the critical observer to detect parallels with the colonial bureaucratic violence of earlier historical periods.

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Knowledge and legitimacy in asylum decision-making: the politics of country of origin information

Cited by 15 publications

References 32 publications

The Map and the Territory: The Use of Country Information in Asylum Assessments

The Map and the Territory: The Use of Country Information in Asylum Assessments

Identification as translation: The art of choosing the right spokespersons at the securitized border

Asylum Case Adjudication in Sweden, Country of Origin Information and Epistemic Violence

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