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Taking the „Just“ Decision. Caseworkers and their Communities of Interpretation in the Swiss Asylum Office.
Type of publication
Peer-reviewed
Publikationsform
Contribution to book (peer-reviewed)
Author
Affolter Laura / Poertner Ephraim / Miaz Jonathan,
Project
Doing Credibility; The Construction of Credibility in Swiss Asylum Procedures
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Contribution to book (peer-reviewed)
Book
Asylum Determination in Europe: Ethnographic Perspectives.
Editor
, Gill Nick / Good Anthony
Publisher
Palgrave, Cham
Page(s)
263 - 283
ISBN
978-3-319-94748-8
Title of proceedings
Asylum Determination in Europe: Ethnographic Perspectives.
DOI
10.1007/978-3-319-94749-5
Open Access
URL
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-94749-5_13
Type of Open Access
Publisher (Gold Open Access)
Abstract
Decision-making in street-level bureaucracies has often been portrayed as being riddled with a practical dilemma: that of having to juggle between compassion and rigid rule-following. However, drawing on three ethnographic studies of Swiss asylum administration, we argue that often what are from the ‘outside’ perceived as conflicting rationales of decision-making, are not experienced as such by the caseworkers themselves. Rather these different rationales are made to fit. We argue that decision-makers’ ‘volitional allegiance’ with the office plays a crucial role thereby. For the caseworkers we encountered, decision-making is about taking ‘just decisions’, i.e. decisions that they consider ‘correct’ and ‘fair’. We suggest that these notions of correctness and fairness are crucially influenced by their affiliations and allegiances with different ‘communities of interpretation’ within the office.
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