Refugee status determination, narrative and the oral hearing in Australia and Canada

Vogl, Anthea F.

Refugee status determination, narrative and the oral hearing in Australia and Canada

Vogl, Anthea F.

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Publication Type:: Thesis
Issue Date:: 2015

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Vogl, Anthea F.
dc.date.accessioned	2016-06-24T03:47:07Z
dc.date.available	2016-06-24T03:47:07Z
dc.date.issued	2015
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/44172
dc.description	University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Law.	en_AU
dc.description.abstract	In processes of refugee status determination, the applicant’s first person testimony plays a critical role. The applicant’s own testimony is often the only evidence available to support the claim being made. This thesis examines the presentation and assessment of refugee applicants’ oral testimony before the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) and the Australian Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT). In addressing the conduct of the oral hearing, a central event within refugee status determination processes, it focuses on the critical role played by the form of refugee applicants’ oral testimony. Its central question is how does the form of refugee testimony shape assessments of refugee applicants’ evidence as credible and thus, influence who may access protection and on what terms. These questions are explored through the close reading of 14 refugee applicants’ oral hearings, which took place in Australia and Canada between 2012 and 2014. In analysing the hearings, this thesis argues that the law’s requirement for evidence that is plausible and credible within refugee status determination involves an expectation that applicants present evidence in a compelling narrative form. Using the frameworks of ‘law and literature’ and narrative theory, with attention to questions of temporality, causation and plot, this thesis demonstrates that a demand for narrative structured the oral hearings. The demand encompassed expectations that applicants present evidence marked by linearity; direct and explicable causal connections; and some sense of both ‘plot’ and closure. The hearings woven through this thesis trace how decision-makers articulated such demands and explore the extent to which the demand for narrative represents the State’s requirement that refugees to narrate themselves as particular kinds of subjects, whose complex histories and experiences of fear or harm resolve in the decision to seek refugee status.	en_AU
dc.format	Thesis (PhD)
dc.language.iso	en_AU	en_AU
dc.relation	https://opus.lib.uts.edu.au/bitstream/10453/44172/2/02whole.pdf
dc.rights	The author owns the copyright in this thesis including all reproduction and reuse rights for the work. The work may not be altered without the permission of the copyright owner. Attribution is essential when quoting or paraphrasing from this thesis.
dc.rights	au.edu.uts.lib/ppc
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
dc.title	Refugee status determination, narrative and the oral hearing in Australia and Canada	en_AU
dc.type	Thesis	en_AU
utslib.copyright.status	open_access

Abstract:

In processes of refugee status determination, the applicant’s first person testimony plays a critical role. The applicant’s own testimony is often the only evidence available to support the claim being made. This thesis examines the presentation and assessment of refugee applicants’ oral testimony before the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) and the Australian Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT). In addressing the conduct of the oral hearing, a central event within refugee status determination processes, it focuses on the critical role played by the form of refugee applicants’ oral testimony. Its central question is how does the form of refugee testimony shape assessments of refugee applicants’ evidence as credible and thus, influence who may access protection and on what terms. These questions are explored through the close reading of 14 refugee applicants’ oral hearings, which took place in Australia and Canada between 2012 and 2014. In analysing the hearings, this thesis argues that the law’s requirement for evidence that is plausible and credible within refugee status determination involves an expectation that applicants present evidence in a compelling narrative form. Using the frameworks of ‘law and literature’ and narrative theory, with attention to questions of temporality, causation and plot, this thesis demonstrates that a demand for narrative structured the oral hearings. The demand encompassed expectations that applicants present evidence marked by linearity; direct and explicable causal connections; and some sense of both ‘plot’ and closure. The hearings woven through this thesis trace how decision-makers articulated such demands and explore the extent to which the demand for narrative represents the State’s requirement that refugees to narrate themselves as particular kinds of subjects, whose complex histories and experiences of fear or harm resolve in the decision to seek refugee status.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/44172