Constructed objectivity in asylum decision-making through new technologies

Bibliographic Data

ID3608538
AuthorsDerya Ozkul (0000-0001-5651-1983)
Year2025
Volume51
Issue14
Pages3629-3648
Publication date2025-08-27
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueNew Community (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0047-9586 • E-ISSN: 1469-9451
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/1369183x.2025.2513161
OpenAlexW4412104954
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited46

Asylum decision-making is a complicated process. The vast ethnographic scholarship on refugee status determination underscores the interplay of subjectivities among various individuals involved in the process, including decision-makers, interpreters and invited experts. In recent years, several asylum authorities have introduced new technologies into the asylum procedure. This article focuses on the adoption of two specific tools, ‘automated dialect recognition’ and ‘automated mobile phone data analysis’, by German authorities to support country-of-origin determination and assessment of applications. Drawing on social constructionism and sociology of knowledge, the article investigates the circumstances under which these tools have been integrated into the decision-making process and explores their implications for asylum procedures and practice. It shows that these tools serve to reinforce a bureaucratic logic that prioritises speed, and that this shift is embedded in a broader trend of digitalisation within public administration and reflects an assumption that asylum seekers are inherently deceptive. The analysis demonstrates that authorities construct objectivity by outsourcing the analysis to private tech companies, i.e. entities that are outside the decision-making process, and by using numerical probabilities that appear to produce precise outcomes. Ultimately, the article argues that these technologies obscure existing subjectivities and place the burden of proof on applicants

Epistemology · Objectivity (philosophy · Political science · Sociology · Global Security and Public Health · Migration, Health and Trauma · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Philosophy

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Open DOIOpen Access