Translating Truthfulness and Credibility: On Socio-Legal Construction of Refugee Through Language Interpretation

Abstract: This thesis revolves around how the truthfulness of the asylum claim is constructed within the process of refugee status determination in Sweden by focusing on the role of interpretation. The study asks what role interpretation plays in the formation of truth within the credibility assessment of asylum claims. The thesis employs semi-structured interviews with asylum-seekers, lawyers, and interpreters. The analysis of the interplay between these actors and thus the research question is made possible by applying Michel Foucault’s conception of ‘truth’ construction, truth-games, and truth-telling practices. The research discloses the arbitrariness of the credibility assessment and investigates how truthful narratives and credible applicants are constructed within the interview room. The credibility indicators used in practice are formalistic and depend on how the narrative is presented. A truthful applicant must accord with these expectations to become a refugee. In this setting, the interpreter plays a significant role between the asylum-seeker and interviewer who can change the content and form of an asylum-seeker’s truth-telling practice. The interpreter is an active, visible and effective agent in the truth construction. Last but not least, this thesis reveals that interpreters and lawyers who are exposed to asylum interviews many times gain the know-how of credibility. In other words, they master the rules of a truth-game by practice and repetition. On the other hand, the asylum-seeker is exposed to the asylum interviews once or twice in total, making it for asylum-seeker a dramatically unfair game whose rules are learned with repetition.