The intelligible asylum seeker: creating an affectively credible protagonist

Asylum judges derive the legitimacy of their decisions through an evaluation of the asylum seeker’s credibility, which is thought to filter out fraudulent asylum claims. Scholars have analyzed credibility as consistency, reflecting how judges themselves define credibility in their written decisions. I challenge the notion of credibility as being solely based in consistency by exploring its affective construction in asylum cases. Through an eight-week ethnography at a United States legal aid non-governmental organization (NGO), I observe how lawyers construct what I term affective credibility—creating an illusion of complete intelligibility by transforming asylum seekers into logical, coherent, and trustworthy protagonists within linear storylines. Presenting the asylum seeker as such allows the judge to know them as a literary character, building an affinity between judge and applicant that convinces the judge of the applicant's credibility not only because they aren't lying, but because they wouldn't lie. The judge is invited to enter the story as the hero who can deliver the happy resolution of an affirmative asylum decision.