A workshop by Karolin Machtans
To prove that their fear of persecution is real, asylum applicants must attend an asylum interview which serves to assess their credibility. According to the German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), the personal interview is the most important part of the credibility assessment and ultimately determines the outcome of the asylum process. During the interview, asylum applicants are expected to present their reasons for flight , describing their biographies, their travel route, and the persecution they have faced. They are “obliged to tell the truth at all times”. Most importantly, their asylum story needs to be told in a way that is convincing for the decision-maker, in order to be granted legal protection. Yet what exactly is considered a “believable” story? Which asylum narratives are classified as “authentic” and thus legitimized by German asylum law?
Since the arrival of over a million migrants and refugees in Germany in 2015 and 2016, a growing body of (auto)fictional literature has been published that deals with the experiences of refugees in Germany. Through the use of innovative literary strategies, these texts highlight the extent to which the outcome of the asylum process depends on the applicant’s ability to tell a credible, coherent, and convincing story tailored to the narrative rules of the receiving country, thus emphasizing the narrative constructedness of asylum procedures.
The workshop brings together scholars and practitioners from the disciplines of asylum law and literary studies, in order to reflect on the interrelations between asylum law and literature and to rethink asylum law by means of literary concepts.
It explores questions and topics such as, for example:
- Conventions: Do legal practitioners take into account the cultural and narrative conventions that determine what kind of asylum story is considered convincing in a particular receiving country – in our case: Germany?
- Translation: Asylum narratives are subject to different forms of translation. How aware are legal practitioners of the highly mediated nature of asylum interviews, and how does literature productively engage with it?
- Artificial intelligence: Artificial intelligence is not only used to determine an asylum applicant’s language and their assumed nationality. More importantly, through data extraction from mobile phones and social media accounts, the asylum narratives are being checked for plausibility, raising questions about who is to be held responsible if an automatic interpretation of this data incorrectly leads to an adverse credibility finding. To what extent are the challenges and risks of artificial intelligence reflected in asylum law and literature?
The workshop takes place together with:
Markus Kotzur – Vice Dean for International Relations and Chair for Public Law, European and International Public Law at the University of Hamburg.
Dörte Bischoff – Professor of Modern German Literature at University of Hamburg