This article analyzes the role increasingly played by oral testimony in asylum procedures in the years 2011–2013, when the “Arab spring” and the war on Libya caused a sudden increase in the number of migrants entering Italy, as well as a peak in rejections. Drawing from ethnographic cases, I suggest that in Italy this shift was based on assumptions about the scientific objectivity and neutrality of interviewing and translation techniques. I argue that such assumptions fall apart under scrutiny by revealing all assessment techniques (both of written evidence and oral testimony) as spaces of contestation. Furthermore, I suggest that they conceal the sharp hardening of European asylum politics under supposedly neutral technicalities. At times of a perceived “refugee crisis,” the mere assessment of the oral narrative allowed for easier and speedier rejections.

中文翻译：

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真相的位置：意大利庇护程序中的身体和声音

本文分析了2011-2013年期间口头证词在庇护程序中日益发挥的作用，当时“阿拉伯之春”和对利比亚的战争导致进入意大利的移民人数突然增加，拒绝人数达到顶峰。从人种学案例中，我建议在意大利，这种转变是基于对采访和翻译技术的科学客观性和中立性的假设。我认为，通过将所有评估技术（书面证据和口头证言）作为竞争的空间来揭示，这样的假设在审查之下变得分散了。此外，我建议他们将欧洲庇护政治的急剧强化掩盖在所谓的中立技术下。在被认为是“难民危机”的时候，