Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the significance and negotiation of "truth" and "credibility" in the construction of deserving and undeserving migrants in Germany. Focussing on the process of legal action, it investigates migrants' navigations and provides insight into the decision-making-practices in court.

Paper long abstract:

This contribution examines the significance and negotiation of "truth" and "credibility" within the construction of deserving and undeserving migrants in Germany. Faced with a "culture of disbelief", asylum seekers must convince the state authorities that their accounts are believable and thus possibly true (glaubhaft) and that they are credible as persons (glaubwürdig). In case of a denial, many applicants make legal claims, starting a process of legal action, which currently takes at least 2 years, before their case is heard in court. Focusing on this process of legal action, this contribution aims to provide insight into migrants' navigations, as well as the decision-making-practices in court. In this context, "truth" and "credibility" become not only a prerequisite for accessing rights, but also the object of constant negotiations between the German state, the asylum seekers and - amongst others- their legal advisors. These negotiations happen within a "framework of narrative power" (Niedrik and Seukwa 2010), in which "'Europe' maintains its self-image as a stronghold of human rights" (ibid.), by rescuing the "true refugees (victims)" and repulsing the "false refugees (aggressors)" (ibid.). Migrants from the Global South, however, bring narratives of "truth" into the asylum procedures that question and challenge this "framework of narrative power" and its binary legal distinction. On the institutional level, these narratives not only lead to complex negotiations within the asylum decision-making, but also provide valuable insight into the historically and socio-culturally constructedness of "truth" and "credibility" in the context of "asylum" in the Global North.