LEADER 06570nam 22007575 450 001 9910427730003321 005 20251113191127.0 010 $a9783030615123 010 $a303061512X 024 7 $a10.1007/978-3-030-61512-3 035 $a(CKB)5410000000054423 035 $a(DE-He213)978-3-030-61512-3 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC6417096 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL6417096 035 $a(OCoLC)1231611204 035 $a(oapen)https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/27525 035 $a(PPN)252509013 035 $a(Perlego)4177812 035 $a(ODN)ODN0010187425 035 $a(oapen)doab27525 035 $a(EXLCZ)995410000000054423 100 $a20201130d2021 u| 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aurnn#008mamaa 181 $ctxt$2rdacontent 182 $cc$2rdamedia 183 $acr$2rdacarrier 200 10$aAsylum Matters $eOn the Front Line of Administrative Decision-Making /$fby Laura Affolter 205 $a1st ed. 2021. 210 1$aCham :$cSpringer International Publishing :$cImprint: Palgrave Macmillan,$d2021. 215 $a1 online resource (XVII, 203 p. 4 illus., 2 illus. in color.) 225 1 $aPalgrave Socio-Legal Studies,$x2947-9282 311 08$a9783030615116 311 08$a3030615111 327 $aIntro -- 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. 327 $aA 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. 330 $aThis open access book examines everyday practices in an asylum administration. Asylum decisions are often criticised as being ?subjective? or ?arbitrary?. Asylum Matters turns this claim on its head. Through the ethnographic study of asylum decision-making in the Swiss Secretariat for Migration, the book shows how regularities in administrative practice and ?socialised subjectivity? are produced. It argues that asylum caseworkers acquire an institutional habitus through their socialisation on the job, making them ?carriers? of routine practices. The different chapters of the book deal with what it means to methodologically study administrative practice: with how asylum proceedings work in Switzerland and with the role different types of knowledge play in overcoming the uncertainties inherent in refugee status and credibility determination. It sheds light on organisational socialisation processes and on the professional norms and values at the heart of administrative work. By doing so, it shows how disbelief becomes normalised in the office. This book speaks to legal scholars, sociologists, anthropologists, human geographers and political scientists interested in bureaucracy, asylum law, migration studies and socio-legal studies, and to NGOs working in the field of asylum. Laura Affolter is a postdoctoral researcher in the Research Group Sociology of Law at the Hamburg Institute for Social Research, Germany, and Associate Researcher at the Institute for Social Anthropology in Bern, Switzerland. Her (co-authored) publications include Taking the ?Just? Decision (2019) and Keeping Numbers Low in the Name of Fairness (2020). 410 0$aPalgrave Socio-Legal Studies,$x2947-9282 606 $aHuman rights 606 $aLaw and the social sciences 606 $aEmigration and immigration 606 $aHuman geography 606 $aHuman Rights 606 $aSocio-Legal Studies 606 $aHuman Migration 606 $aHuman Geography 615 0$aHuman rights. 615 0$aLaw and the social sciences. 615 0$aEmigration and immigration. 615 0$aHuman geography. 615 14$aHuman Rights. 615 24$aSocio-Legal Studies. 615 24$aHuman Migration. 615 24$aHuman Geography. 676 $a341.48 676 $a364 676 $a342.494083 686 $aLAW051000$aPOL029000$aSOC004000$aSOC007000$aSOC015000$2bisacsh 700 $aAffolter$b Laura$4aut$4http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/aut$0851756 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910427730003321 996 $aAsylum Matters$91901798 997 $aUNINA