ASYFAIR CONFERENCE 2021 Call for Papers: Adjudicating Refugee Claims in Practice – Advocacy and Experience at Asylum Appeals
Conference Dates: 30 June – 3 July 2021
Location: Online (Zoom) hosted by the ASYFAIR project at the University of Exeter (UK)
Deadline for abstract submission: 26 February 2021
Immigration judges are tasked with the highly challenging job of deciding an asylum claim in an imperfect informational environment where evidence, expertise, testimonies and even the ability to reason intuitively about country of origin conditions and particular cases can be highly constrained. If this was not challenging enough, asylum appeal caseloads increased markedly across Europe in 2017 and 2018, putting strain on the capacities of Europe’s judiciary to deal with the challenges of adjudication effectively. The policy context is continuously evolving, the linguistic challenges are manifold, the political environment is often problematic, and the stakes are high in terms of the personal safety of refugees and the integrity of European countries’ claims to uphold their international obligations to people forced to migrate to find safety.
The conference will take place 30 June – 3 July 2021 and will be fully online (via Zoom).
Paper contributions are warmly invited to the virtual ASYFAIR Project Conference on the socio-legal aspects of asylum adjudication in Europe (and other nations in the Global North and South). We welcome papers on any aspect of the adjudication of asylum appeals, including from Law, Socio-Legal Studies, Anthropology, Sociology, Geography, Cultural Studies, Linguistics, or any other relevant field. We particularly encourage participation by experts by experience (e.g. refugees, lawyers, interpreters, judges, activists, volunteers, etc.).
Papers could focus on a range of topics on asylum appeals including (but not limited to):
Decision-making
Communication and Narrative
Discretion and Rule-following
Judgecraft and Training for Asylum Appeals
Legal and Court Procedure
The Spatio-Temporal Environment of the Hearing and Court
Legal Geography
Behaviour and Emotions at Court
Intersectionality
Access to Justice
Trauma, Violence and Vulnerability
Technology in Asylum Appeal Processes
Complexities Introduced by the COVID-19 Pandemic
Materiality and Justice
Evidence (including Country of Origin Information and Witness Statements)
Legal Representation and Advice
Language, Interpretation and Translation
Conducting Research at Court (especially Qualitative and Ethnographic Methods)
Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words, 3-4 keywords and a short biography (100 words) to ASYFAIR at asyfair@exeter.ac.uk no later than 26 February 2021.
We will consider submissions for panels, if the panel organisers provide abstracts and details of all presenters (3-4) in the proposed panel. We will also consider pre-recorded presentations for the conference.
Please also see the conference website on https://asyfair.com/output/
Please do not hesitate to contact Nick Gill (n.m.gill@exeter.ac.uk) and Nicole Hoellerer (n.hoellerer@exeter.ac.uk) for any further questions.
REFUGEES WELCOME: We welcome contributions by former and current asylum seekers who have experience with asylum appeals at courts in European countries. If you would like to participate in the conference and share your experiences and you would like to discuss doing so, please do not hesitate to contact us by emailing ASYFAIR at asyfair@exeter.ac.uk. Furth