Paper short abstract:

The purpose of this paper is to present the tension between institutional categories of asylum seekers and infiltrators and intercultural mediators’ practices that challenge the structural categories order which defines them as foreigners

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines the double liminality experienced by Eritrean asylum-seeking intercultural mediators who are employed as linguistic and cultural translators by the Israeli state and by aid organizations serving asylum seekers in Israel. The paper is based on qualitative in-depth ethnographic research focusing on these intercultural mediators’ work and personal lives and the subjective meanings they attach to their professional roles. As such, it highlights how their very work as mediators, their knowledge of the Hebrew language, and familiarity with bureaucracy challenge the binary distinctions between local and migrant.

Furthermore, it demonstrates how asylum-seeking mediators experience dual liminality resulting from their personal and professional legal status. On the one hand, they lack permanent legal status in Israel and belong to a community that exists in “legal liminality” and at the mercy of the Israeli authorities, and on the other, they provide services linked directly or indirectly to the these authorities and their organizations. Thus, their role places them in an interstitial position between the state, the host society, and those receiving their services. This dual liminality creates a distinctive and complex reality for the mediators, which highlights the power of discursive categories to shape the lived experiences of migrants as much as the formal legal categories imposed by the state.