The research project Asylum Narratives, funded by the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies 2018–2022, examines the role that language and communication play in the Swedish asylum process.

The project

• examines how the asylum narrative is shaped and reshaped during the asylum process.
• focuses on the Swedish Migration Agency’s interviews with asylum seekers and on the communication between the asylum seeker and the assigned counsel.
• seeks to answer the following questions:
  • How is the narrative about the asylum seeker co-constructed by the asylum seeker, the caseworker, the interpreter and the assigned counsel?
  • How does the narrative change when it is converted from an oral into a written version in the Migration Agency’s draft decisions?
  • How is the asylum seeker’s identity constructed during the interviews, in the meetings with the assigned counsel and in the written documentation?