Paper short abstract:

This paper examines asylum cases in North America and explores the ways in which evidentiary concerns are being examined by courts as a way to clarify state responsibilities to protect asylum seekers in relation to understandings of cultural norms and potential threats to claimants in the countries of origin. The paper attempts to advocate a theory of anthropological knowledge brokering by examining new forms of anthropological engagement.

Paper long abstract:

The post-cold war reconfiguration of economies and national state alignments have found us in a period in which civil wars and revolutionary democratic demands have led to social upheavals and the movement of large populations. Among the forces of change have been growing asylum claims, especially from the global South, requiring the growth of a related industry of refugee lawyers, legal brokers, and expert witnesses—all involved in the play of claim making. In search of "facts" and in an effort to make sense of cultural "truths," the development of a "culture of experts" remains among the fastest growing domains of contemporary asylum cases today. This paper examines the exponential growth of a "culture of experts" through which to understand both the discursive and changing requirements of proof for North American asylum courts, as well as the reshaping of new anthropological publics through demands for ethnographic knowledge products - known as expert testimony. I examine asylum cases through which evidentiary concerns were examined as a way to clarify state responsibilities to protect asylum seekers in relation to understandings of cultural norms and potential threats to claimants in the countries of origin. The paper argues for a new conceptualization of anthropological knowledge packages that attends to the changing terms of evidentiary deliverance and argues for a reconceptualization of the work of anthropological expertise.