Toward a feminist geo‐legal reading
US country‐of‐origin information in asylum adjudication
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8360949 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Malene H Jacobsen (0000-0002-0494-3642, Newcastle University, corresponding author), Austin Crane (0009-0006-4981-8614, University of South Carolina), Elise Dosch (University of North Carolina at Charlotte) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 58 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Publication date | 2025-10-30 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Area (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0004-0894 • E-ISSN: 1475-4762 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/area.70066 |
| OpenAlex | W4415690506 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 24 |
In this article, we offer what we call ‘a feminist geo‐legal reading’ of documents used in spaces and practices of law. Legal cases and decisions are often based on different legal and non‐legal documents, including laws, explanatory memorandums, testimonies, medical reports, and so forth. In contemporary asylum adjudication, country‐of‐origin information reports (COIs) have become a crucial source of authoritative evidence as asylum officers and immigration judges use these reports in their determination of a person's need for and right to protection. However, there is no straight line from COIs' substance to the prevailing authority that they command within asylum adjudication. Thus, we bring together insights from feminist legal geographies and critical refugee studies to develop a critical method of reading and analysis of documents, like COIs. Specifically, we provide a feminist geo‐legal reading of a 2022 COI on El Salvador produced by the US Department of State. Our reading interrogates COIs' substance, what they are made of and what they obfuscate. We argue this method of reading can enable legal geographers to question the claimed neutrality, objectivity and impartiality of documents used in law and juridical decisions through highlighting the legal and political geographies that these documents are part of and (re)produce. In this way, a feminist geo‐legal reading functions as a mode of critique and enables scholars to make space for other knowledges. Thus, this article contributes to the growing body of work on methods and methodologies used by socio‐legal scholars and legal geographers
Adjudication · Close reading · Immigration · Impartiality · Objectivity (philosophy) · Politics · Reading (process) · Refugee · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Urban Planning and Governance
Feminist legal archeology, domestic violence and the raced-gendered juridical boundaries of U.S. asylum law
Aftermath
Do the Facts Speak for Themselves? Country of Origin Information in French and British Refugee Status Determination Procedures
Seeking Sanctuary
Legal geography I
Deportations and the transnational roots of gang violence in Central America
The Map and the Territory
What’s missing from legal geography and materialist studies of law? Absence and the assembling of asylum appeal hearings in Europe
Practical engagements in legal geography
Unnatural discourse. ‘Race’ and gender in geography
Redefining refugees
Contemporary Refugee‐Border Dynamics and the Legacies of the 1919 Paris Peace Conference ⋆
Colonial archives and the arts of governance
Absent, Repressive, and Criminalized States
Geographies of missing data
Feminist legal geographies
To recognize the tyranny of distance
Embodied Exhibits
Making workable knowledge for asylum decisions
In the Shadow of Asylum Decision-Making
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |