Offering the first interdisciplinary study of refugees in the Caribbean, Central America, and the United States, Asylum Speakers relates current theoretical debates about hospitality and cosmopolitanism to the actual conditions of refugees. In doing so, the author weighs the questions of "truth value" associated with various modes of witnessing to explore the function of testimonial discourse in constructing refugee subjectivity in New World cultural and political formations. By examining literary works by such writers as Edwidge Danticat, Nik l Payen, Kamau Brathwaite, Francisco Goldman, Julia Alvarez, Ivonne Lamazares, and Cecilia Rodr guez Milan s, theoretical work by Jacques Derrida, Edouard Glissant, and Wilson Harris, as well as human rights documents, government documents, photography, and historical studies, Asylum Speakers constructs a complex picture of New World refugees that expands current discussions of diaspora and migration, demonstrating that the peripheral nature of refugee testimonial narratives requires us to reshape the boundaries of U.S. ethnic and postcolonial studies.

"Asylum Speakers is truly an anthology of humanity. It's a reminder of how much we all have in common and that each of us has an equal right to be safe." - Josie Naughton, founder of Choose Love Based on the popular podcast, Asylum Speakers is a collection of 31 stories of migration, from those leaving everything they know behind them, to those working alongside them. Here are the voices that often go unheard: the humans behind the statistics and the headlines. From Syria to Venezuela, Eritrea to Afghanistan, Asylum Speakers will transcend borders, nationalities, religions and languages, connecting you to the people with whom we share this world. "These stories are raw, powerful, intimate, at times hard to read but always full of humanity. Reading this book gives me hope." - Giles Duley, CEO of Legacy of War Foundation

Drawing on first-hand ethnographic data, field interviews with interpreters, interviewers and decision-makers, observations and off-record comments, The Asylum Speaker examines discursive processes in the asylum procedure and the impact these processes may have on the determination of refugee status. The book starts from the assumption that far-reaching legal decisions often have to be made on very limited grounds. Unable to submit any evidence to substantiate their case, the only chance that many asylum seekers have is to argue their case during the oral hearings with public officials at the different asylum agencies. Maryns investigates the performance of the asylum seeker during these interviews and analyzes the relationship between narrative structuring and gradations of linguistic competence. She explores a number of related questions: first, how the interaction between applicants and public officials proceeds; second, how this interaction forms the discursive input into long and complicated textual trajectories, and third, how the outcome of these discursive processes affects the assessment of asylum applications. Maryns demonstrates how propositional aspects play a crucial role in the asylum procedure whereas little attention is paid to narrative-linguistic diversity and multilingual speaker repertoires. Her analysis reveals how insufficient insight into the linguistic structure and narrative features of the asylum account often results in a deficient processing of important details.

The early part of the 21st century has been marked by widespread social upheaval and geographical displacement of people. This book examines how refugees, asylum-seekers, locals and professional refugee workers make sense of asylum and refuge in the context of current UK asylum policies.

Meet 30 extraordinary people - from refugees and asylum seekers to those on the frontline helping them - and hear about the life-changing journeys they have made. We are currently experiencing the biggest humanitarian crisis of our time. Across the world, from Ukraine to Sudan to Mexico, people are forced to flee their homes every day due to conflict, climate change and persecution. And devastatingly, the scale of this crisis is only predicted to get worse- by 2050, 1 in 10 people on earth will be displaced. Having met and interviewed hundreds of people impacted by migration, charity founder Jaz O'Hara shares 30 remarkable and inspiring stories, from refugees to volunteers working on the frontline- ordinary people with extraordinary experiences. Each story is accompanied by stunning photography, family photos, maps, and drawings. Here are the voices that often go unheard- the humans behind the statistics and the headlines. Asylum Speakers will transcend borders, nationalities, religions and languages,connecting you to the people with whom we share this world- our worldwide tribe.

African Asylum at a Crossroads: Activism, Expert Testimony, and Refugee Rights examines the emerging trend of requests for expert opinions in asylum hearings or refugee status determinations. This is the first book to explore the role of court-based expertise in relation to African asylum cases and the first to establish a rigorous analytical framework for interpreting the effects of this new reliance on expert testimony. Over the past two decades, courts in Western countries and beyond have begun demanding expert reports tailored to the experience of the individual claimant. As courts increasingly draw upon such testimony in their deliberations, expertise in matters of asylum and refugee status is emerging as an academic area with its own standards, protocols, and guidelines. This deeply thoughtful book explores these developments and their effects on both asylum seekers and the experts whose influence may determine their fate. Contributors: Iris Berger, Carol Bohmer, John Campbell, Katherine Luongo, E. Ann McDougall, Karen Musalo, Tricia Redeker Hepner, Amy Shuman, Joanna T. Tague, Meredith Terretta, and Charlotte Walker-Said.

"Thinking with an Accent brings together leading and emerging scholars of media, literature, education, law, linguistics, sound, and politics to theorize accent as an understudied lynchpin of the global cultural economy. It reframes accent as a powerfully coded and yet unexplored mode of perception-one that, properly harnessed, can yield transformative modalities of knowledge, action, and care. Accent, this anthology shows, does more than denote geographic, ethnic, or social identity. Accent emerges through listening, mobilizes negotiations of power, and enacts desiring relations. To think with an accent is to practice a dialogical and multimodal inquiry that unfolds the tensions of address within mediated utterances"--

A topical and timely book that addresses the growing social and political issues of national borders. Brennan offers comparisons to US and European experiences and a practical blueprint for countries wanting to humanely protect asylum seekers.

According to international statistics, the world is currently undergoing one of the largest refugee catastrophes in modern history. This humanitarian crisis has stimulated the mobilization of countless private and public rescue and relief efforts. Yet, deep-seated concerns over potential breaches of national security and wide-spread fears over uncontrolled mass immigration have prompted many policy-makers to caution against the unregulated entry of foreigners with little or no identity documentation. In an effort to strike a balance between addressing the needs of these two competing sets of concerns, an increasing number of governments have instituted policies and procedures for identity verification. In this multi-authored work, the focus is placed upon the widespread governmental use of language analyses to investigate displaced persons’ registered origins. This dynamic collection of writings provides readers with a thought-provoking, politically-stimulating, intellectually challenging examination of the pitfalls and promise of these practices across differing sociopolitical, legal, linguistic, and geographical contexts. This contextual diversity reflects the unique strength of this reference work. Unlike so many other publications on the market that focus rigidly upon a single vantage point, this work offers a dynamic exploration of the theory and practice of language analysis for governmentally-mandated identification procedures. From the linguistic scholar to the human rights activist, the agency worker to the asylum-seeking applicant, this collection offers a complex and rich cross-section of professional and personal experiences. The multiplicity of perspectives is powerfully complemented by the heterogeneity of disciplines represented in this work. From sociology, psychology, demography, and language policy to linguistics, ethics, international affairs, government and politics, this work will satisfy a wide variety of readers’ scholarly interests and commensurately serves as an excellent reference work for researchers and practitioners as well as a valuable teaching resource for graduate and undergraduate courses.

An accessible and entertaining textbook that introduces students to sociolinguistics in a real-world context, with issues they care about.