TY  - CHAP
AB  - Abstract This chapter explores the multiple boundaries traversed and accompanying acts of translation entailed in the provision of expertise by anthropologists. The chapter begins with an overview of the asylum process, the criteria constituting persecution, and a description of the bureaucracy and procedures by which asylum is determined. The role of expert witness is then introduced with a focus on the rules of federal evidence that paved the way for greater anthropological involvement in the provision of expertise. The next section reviews some of the extant ethnographic literature to date on the asylum process, highlighting the role of dissonance as a recurrent theme in two different respects: the dissonance that occurs between the asylum applicant and the legal setting, and the dissonance that is created between the asylee and his or her body in the aftermath of trauma. The crafting of the affidavit is then analyzed to illustrate the boundary crossings and acts of translation involved in the appraisal and understanding of asylum, including the traversal of difference in scale, temporality, and the construction of social reality, particularly those espoused by anthropology and law. I suggest that contributing to the protection of human rights through the provision of expert witness is a necessary and mutually beneficial collaboration whereby anthropological evidence, insight, and knowledge provide positive content to legal rights. I conclude that anthropologists are uniquely well qualified in the interlocution of persecution, likening the provision of expertise to fieldwork, as a series of border crossings and acts of translation.
VL  - 74
SN  - 978-1-78743-764-7, 978-1-78743-763-0/1059-4337
DO  - 10.1108/S1059-433720180000074006
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1108/S1059-433720180000074006
AU  - Gallagher Kathleen M.
ED  - Austin Sarat
ED  - Leila Rodriguez
PY  - 2018
Y1  - 2018/01/01
TI  - Traversing Boundaries: Anthropology, Political Asylum and the Provision of Expert Witness
T2  - Special Issue: Cultural Expert Witnessing
T3  - Studies in Law, Politics, and Society
PB  - Emerald Publishing Limited
SP  - 115
EP  - 132
Y2  - 2021/04/12
ER  -