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Paper short abstract:

To decolonize research on African mobilities, empirical cases challenge analytical categories & assumptions informing British asylum decision-making as represented in the 2016 Country Information and Guidance on "female genital mutilation" & "sexual orientation and gender identity" in Ghana.

Paper long abstract:

Every month the United Kingdom deports Ghanaians. Some UK-based Ghanaians attempt to forestall removal via refugee claims. The UK Home Office (UKHO) views Ghana as "a free, open and democratic society," where "civil liberties" are "protected" (UKHO 2016). Informed by this belief, the UKHO rejects refugee petitions. Over the past decades, however, the narratives of asylum claimants have broadened and diversified to encompass social, economic, and cultural persecution, such as forms of gender-based violence, witchcraft, and human trafficking. These claims invoke the state as party or ancillary to persecution, and as a consequence, scholars have shifted attention to decision-making processes, such as establishing the veracity of a claim (Good 2007) or the credibility (Kagan 2003) of claimants.

In response to "protean" claims (Lawrance et al 2015), the UKHO conducts research and publishes reports to guide first-instance decision-makers. This paper presents empirical cases to challenge the analytical categories and assumptions informing British asylum decision-making as represented in the 2016 Country Information and Guidance on "female genital mutilation" and "sexual orientation and gender identity". I compare the prosecution and persecution narratives of four individuals with the UKHO country guidance narration of the predicament of "particular social group" members. I explore intersections in personal and governmental narratives and provide an account of the disjunctures. I consider the type of evidence the UKHO furnishes and compare it with individual experiences to demonstrate the incommensurability of generalized guidance for social and cultural forms of persecution as a means of decolonizing research on African mobilities.