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Transcribing Refugees: The Entextualization Of Asylum Seekers' Hearings In A Transidiomatic Environment, Marco Jacquemet

Communication Studies

This article explores the link between asylum seekers’ verbal performances and their transidiomatic entextualization by documenting the procedure through which asylum seekers’ claims are examined by judicial authorities and translated into a public record. Every year thousands of displaced people seek the protection of various European states by filing political asylum claims which are examined by national commissions. In their depositions, asylum seekers are interviewed by immigration o‰cials for approximately an hour. After this interview they are presented with a judgment: a short text that summarizes their story and spells out the commission’s decision on the case. The claim of …