Asylum Matters : : On the Front Line of Administrative Decision-Making /

Open Access

Asylum Matters : : On the Front Line of Administrative Decision-Making / / by Laura Affolter.

Show other versions (1)

This open access book examines everyday practices in an asylum administration. Asylum decisions are often criticised as being ‘subjective’ or ‘arbitrary’. Asylum Matters turns this claim on its head. Through the ethnographic study of asylum decision-making in the Swiss Secretariat for Migration, the...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Superior document:Palgrave Socio-Legal Studies
VerfasserIn:
Affolter, Laura.
Place / Publishing House:Cham : : Springer International Publishing :, Imprint: Palgrave Macmillan,, 2021.
Year of Publication:2021
Edition:1st ed. 2021.
Language:English
Series:Palgrave Socio-Legal Studies
Physical Description:1 online resource (XVII, 203 p. 4 illus., 2 illus. in color.)
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Table of Contents:
  • Intro
  • Acknowledgements
  • Praise for Asylum Matters
  • Contents
  • Abbreviations
  • List of Figures
  • 1 Shaping Administrative Practice: The Institutional Habitus
  • The Shaping of Discretion
  • Assessing Credibility in Asylum Procedures: A Subjective Matter?
  • The Institutional Habitus: A Brief Conceptual Introduction
  • Outline of the Book
  • References
  • 2 Studying Everyday Practice(s) in the SEM
  • Getting into the "Black Box"
  • "Getting In"... Literally
  • Doing Fieldwork
  • Following People Around
  • Method Triangulation
  • The Researcher as a Learner
  • My Interaction Partners in the SEM
  • Thinking Through and with Practice Theory: Methodological Limits and Challenges
  • References
  • 3 Asylum Decision-Making in Switzerland
  • Asylum Politics in Switzerland and Beyond
  • Changing Law and the Proliferation of Legal Categories
  • The SEM: A Specialised Asylum Administration Emerges
  • The Decision-Making Procedure
  • The Swiss Asylum Act
  • References
  • 4 Knowledge as Practice: Producing Decisional Certainty
  • Ben's Case
  • "Country Knowledge"
  • Determining Applicants' "Country of Origin"
  • Assessing Reasonable Likelihood
  • Assessing Demeanour
  • Producing Decisional Certainty: The Role of Professional-Practical Knowledge
  • Producing On-File Facts: The Asylum Interview
  • Writing Asylum Decisions: The Final Creation of Legal Facts
  • Managing Uncertainty: The Importance of Credibility Determination
  • Concluding Remarks
  • References
  • 5 Getting in Line with the Office
  • Becoming a Member of the Office
  • Who Are the Decision-Makers?
  • Recruiting New Decision-Makers
  • Communities of Interpretation
  • Learning the Ropes of Asylum Decision-Making
  • Learning What Questions to Ask
  • Learning to Test Credibility
  • Accountability
  • Peer Pressure
  • Accountability Towards Superiors and Beyond.
  • A Brief Summary: Acquiring an Institutional Habitus
  • References
  • 6 The Good Decision-Maker or Protecting the System
  • Negotiating "the Right" Decision: A Field Anecdote
  • Ethics of the Office: Decision-Makers as Protectors of the System
  • Ethos of the Office: Professional Norms and Values
  • The Efficient, Fast and Economical Decision-Maker
  • The Neutral, Apolitical Decision-Maker
  • The Objective, Sufficiently Distanced and Emotionally Detached Decision-Maker
  • The Sufficiently but Not Overly Suspicious Decision-Maker
  • Ethos Is Ethics: The Fair Decision-Maker
  • Conclusion
  • References
  • 7 The Normalisation of Disbelief
  • References
  • Index.

Similar Items