Five language myths about refugee credibility

In a world where public debates about refugees and asylum seekers often focus on whether they are telling the truth, it should probably come as no surprise that government processes for evaluating asylum claims emphasize assessing applicant credibility. These credibility assessments have – rightly – attracted ample criticism from scholars across multiple disciplines for many years now. From the earliest critiques, scholarly commentary has acknowledged that the asylum process is a site of intercultural communication and suggested that many of the issues with credibility assessment relate to this. Credibility assessment guidance itself also acknowledges that asylum seekers have different social and cultural backgrounds to those of decision-makers and includes suggestions on how to accommodate these differences.