Waiting as probation: selecting self-disciplining asylum seekers

This article diagnoses and critiques a type of governmentality associated with waiting during protracted asylum appeal procedures by drawing upon data from a multi-methodological study of asylum adjudication in Europe. Focusing on Austria, Germany and Italy, we explore the use of integration-related considerations in asylum appeal processes by looking at the ways in which these considerations permeate judges’ decision-making, particularly, but not exclusively, on the granting of national, non-EU harmonised protection statuses. Building on insights from the literature on conditional integration we question the implicit socio-political biases and moral assumptions that underpin this permeation. We show that the use of integration-related considerations in asylum appeals transforms migrant waiting into a period of probation during which rejected asylum seekers’ conducts are governed and tested in relation to the use of time. More than simply waiting patiently, rejected asylum seekers are expected to wait productively, whereby productivity is assessed through the neoliberal imperatives of entrepreneurship, autonomy and self-improvement. We thus contribute to scholarship on migrant waiting by showing how time is capitalised by state authorities even when–and actually because–it offers opportunities for migrants

‘Assembly-line baptism’: judicial discussions of ‘free churches’ in German and Austrian asylum hearings

This is the final version. Available on open access from Berghahn Journals via the DOI in this recordWe explore judges’ perceptions of asylum court appeals based on conversion from Islam to Christianity. Our court ethnography in Germany and Austria in 2018 and 2019 provides an insight into how such claims are discussed during appeals. At the time they were increasingly common, especially concerning Iranians and Afghans involved in ‘free churches’ (e.g. Evangelical, Pentecostal or charismatic). We show how rumours, congregations’ reputations and assumptions about baptism and what genuine conversions entail are discussed. These factors can not only influence appellants’ cases, but reveal church-state tensions and some of the intractable challenges of refugee status determination.European Commissio

Waiting as probation: selecting self-disciplining asylum seekers

This is the final version. Available on open access from Taylor and Francis via the DOI in this recordData Availability Statement: There are no datasets available for this paper.This article diagnoses and critiques a type of governmentality associated with waiting during protracted asylum appeal procedures by drawing upon data from a multi-methodological study of asylum adjudication in Europe. Focusing on Austria, Germany and Italy, we explore the use of integration-related considerations in asylum appeal processes by looking at the ways in which these considerations permeate judges’ decision-making, particularly, but not exclusively, on the granting of national, non-EU harmonised protection statuses. Building on insights from the literature on conditional integration we question the implicit socio-political biases and moral assumptions that underpin this permeation. We show that the use of integration-related considerations in asylum appeals transforms migrant waiting into a period of probation during which rejected asylum seekers’ conducts are governed and tested in relation to the use of time. More than simply waiting patiently, rejected asylum seekers are expected to wait productively, whereby productivity is assessed through the neoliberal imperatives of entrepreneurship, autonomy and self-improvement. We thus contribute to scholarship on migrant waiting by moving beyond an emphasis on the contradictory character of waiting, as both imposition and potentiality, and showing how time is capitalised by state authorities even when – and actually because – it offers opportunities for migrants

It’s not what you know, it’s how you use it: On the application of country of origin information in judicial refugee status determination decisions

This is the author accepted manuscript.Existing research has emphasised the different forms of knowledge available to refugee status determination (RSD) decision makers, as well as the differing conditions under which it is produced, but very little work has addressed how judges interpret, represent and mobilise evidence within written decisions. This study investigates how country of origin information (COI) is used in written RSD decisions, taking Germany’s Higher Administrative Courts’ decisions on Syrian draft evaders as a case study. Our analysis shows that the courts draw different conclusions from the same evidentiary basis, freely utilising a menu of techniques including interpretation, framing and citation styles to amplify or dampen the argumentative force of COI within their reasoning. As such legal reasoning dominates evidence, meaning that evidence is discursively highly malleable, frequently incidental to legal reasoning, and unable to produce legal consensus. Our findings raise concerns that courts use COI selectively to justify the positions they have adopted, rather than allowing their positions to be directed by COI. We conclude by reflecting on what, if anything, should be done about these seemingly opaque and unaccountable textual and discursive forms of discretionary judicial powerEuropean Commissio

What’s missing from legal geography and materialist studies of law? Absence and the assembling of asylum appeal hearings in Europe

This is the final version. Available on open access from Wiley via the DOI in this recordData availability statement: Due to the ethical and legally sensitive nature of the research, ethnographic notes taken in court could not be made openly available. Appellant interviewees were not asked for their permission to share their interview transcripts in an online open archive because of concerns that they could misunderstand what was being asked for, or feel obliged to agree but subsequently feel less able to conduct free conversation in research interviews as a result, thereby negatively impacting on the quality of the data generated. Additional details relating to, and data resulting from, to a survey taken during observations of British asylum appeals between 2013 and 2016 are available from the UK Data Archive (persistent identifier: 10.5255/UKDA-SN-852032).There is an absence of absence in legal geography and materialist studies of the law. Drawing on a multi‐sited ethnography of European asylum appeal hearings, this paper illustrates the importance of absences for a fully‐fledged materiality of legal events. We show how absent materials impact hearings, that non‐attending participants profoundly influence them, and that even when participants are physically present, they are often simultaneously absent in other, psychological registers. In so doing we demonstrate the importance and productivity of thinking not only about law's omnipresence but also the absences that shape the way law is experienced and practiced. We show that attending to the distribution of absence and presence at legal hearings is a way to critically engage with legal performance.Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)European Research Council (ERC

Rethinking commonality in refugee status determination in Europe: Legal Geographies of Asylum Appeals

This is the final version. Available on open access from Elsevier via the DOI in this recordThe Common European Asylum System aims to establish common standards for refugee status determination among EU member states. Combining insights from legal and political geography we bring the depth and scale of this challenge into sharp relief. Drawing on a detailed ethnography of asylum adjudication involving over 850 in person asylum appeal observations, we point towards practical differences in the spatio-temporality, materiality and logistics of asylum appeal processes as they are operationalised in seven European countries. Our analysis achieves three things. Firstly we identify a key zone of differences at the level of concrete, everyday implementation that has largely escaped academic attention, which allows us to critically assess the notion of harmonization of asylum policies in new ways. 3 Secondly, drawing on legal- and political-geographical concepts, we offer a way to conceptualise this zone by paying attention to the spatio-temporality, materiality and logistics it involves. Thirdly, we offer critical legal logistics as a new direction for scholarship in legal geography and beyond that promises to prise open the previously obscured mechanics of contemporary legal systems.Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)European Research Council (ERC

Structure of staphylococcus aureus EsxA suggests a contribution to virulence by action as a transport chaperone and/or adaptor protein

Staphylococcus aureus pathogenesis depends on a specialized protein secretion system, ESX-1, that delivers a range of virulence factors to assist infectivity. We report the characterization of two such factors, EsxA and EsxB; small acidic dimeric proteins carrying a distinctive WXG motif. EsxA crystallized in triclinic and monoclinic forms and high-resolution structures were determined. The asymmetric unit of each crystal form is a dimer. The EsxA subunit forms an elongated cylindrical structure created from side-by-side α-helices linked with a hairpin bend formed by the WXG motif. Approximately 25% of the solvent accessible surface area of each subunit is involved in interactions, predominantly hydrophobic, with the partner subunit. Secondary structure predictions suggest that EsxB displays a similar structure. The WXG motif helps to create a shallow cleft at each end of the dimer, forming a short β-sheet-like feature with an N-terminal segment of the partner subunit. Structural and sequence comparisons, exploiting biological data on related proteins found in Mycobacteria tuberculosis suggest that this family of proteins may contribute to pathogenesis by transporting protein cargo through the ESX-1 system exploiting a C-terminal secretion signal and / or are capable of acting as adaptor proteins to facilitate interactions with host receptor proteins

Tom20 recognizes mitochondrial presequences through dynamic equilibrium among multiple bound states

Most mitochondrial proteins are synthesized in the cytosol and imported into mitochondria. The N-terminal presequences of mitochondrial-precursor proteins contain a diverse consensus motif (φχχφφ, φ is hydrophobic and χ is any amino acid), which is recognized by the Tom20 protein on the mitochondrial surface. To reveal the structural basis of the broad selectivity of Tom20, the Tom20–presequence complex was crystallized. Tethering a presequence peptide to Tom20 through a disulfide bond was essential for crystallization. Unexpectedly, the two crystals with different linker designs provided unique relative orientations of the presequence with respect to Tom20, and neither configuration could fully account for the hydrophobic preference at the three hydrophobic positions of the consensus motif. We propose the existence of a dynamic equilibrium in solution among multiple states including the two bound states. In accordance, NMR 15N relaxation analyses suggested motion on a sub-millisecond timescale at the Tom20–presequence interface. We suggest that the dynamic, multiple-mode interaction is the molecular mechanism facilitating the broadly selective specificity of the Tom20 receptor toward diverse mitochondrial presequences