scholarly journals Knowledge as Practice: Producing Decisional Certainty

2020 ◽  
pp. 75-115
Author(s):  
Laura Affolter
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Refugee Status ◽  
Know How

AbstractMuch uncertainty inheres in refugee status determination and particularly credibility assessments. This chapter deals with how asylum caseworkers attempt to overcome such uncertainties in order to reach enough decisional certainty for categorising asylum seekers into one of four legal categories: refugee with asylum, refugee with temporary admission, non-refugee with temporary admission and non-refugee without temporary admission. I argue that decision-makers’ explicit “country knowledge” as well as their implicit know-how of how to carry out their tasks and their “gut feeling”—which building on Reckwitz (Zeitschrift für Soziologie 32:4: 282–301, 2003) I conceptualise as professional-practical knowledge—plays a crucial role thereby. Furthermore, this chapter shows how basing negative asylum decisions on non-credibility rather than non-eligibility to refugee status serves as a means for overcoming uncertainties inherent in asylum decision-making, leading to the (re-)production of the so-called “culture of disbelief” in asylum administration.

scholarly journals Interrogating the efficiency paradigm : a study of language analysis as evidence in refugee status determination

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin Colleen Pease
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
News Media ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Pilot Project ◽  
Political Context ◽  
The Political ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Refugee Status ◽  
Language Analysis ◽  
The Subject

In 1993, Sweden commenced the unprecedented practice of using Language Analysis (LA) as evidence in refugee status determination. Since that time, Western governments trying to cope with the perceived refugee crisis have similarly adopted the tool to corroborate and undermine the nationality claims of asylum seekers crossing borders without identity documents. During this same period, language professionals, lawyers, various news media, and others across the globe have proceeded to fuel international controversy on the subject, largely challenging the linguistic integrity of the tool, while investing less energy addressing the political context of use, as well as the implications for violations of refugee rights. In 2007, Canada reflected prioritized concerns for efficiency when it made public a pilot project to address the value of this language tool in aiding status decision-making. This paper interrogates the Canadian efficiency paradigm through the Australian lens of LA in practice. In exposing the ethical and legal sites of likely disengagement should Canada proceed with implementation, this paper cautions against LA becoming the most recent assault on a Canadian protection regime already under siege.

International Institutions and Individualized Decision-Making: An Example of UNHCR's Refugee Status Determination

2008 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 1779-1804 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maja Smrkolj
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
Health Conditions ◽  
Refugee Status ◽  
Security Forces ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
Sudanese Refugees ◽  
Individualized Decision ◽  
Asylum Seekers And Refugees

In autumn 2005 a group of Sudanese asylum seekers and refugees discontented with the unbearable conditions in the United Nations High Commissioner for Refuges (UNHCR) office in Cairo started a sit-in protest near the office. The protesters were, besides venting their anger at the suspension of Refugee Status Determination procedures for Sudanese refugees due to the ceasefire between the Sudanese government and Sudan's People Liberation Army, also making their frustrations heard regarding UNHCR's lengthy procedures, its failure to provide them with proper assistance, the high numbers of rejected applications, improper interviews and their general treatment by UNHCR's personnel as well as their difficult social and health conditions which had been aggravated by the lack of proper assistance. They were demanding that this situation be remedied and calling for transparent and fair procedures. Shortly thereafter they were joined by many more protesters so that in the following three months a group of between 1,800 and 2,500 people stayed around UNHCR's premises. However, meetings and negotiations with UNCHR eventually failed. The crisis ended in a tragedy. On December 30, 2005 the Egyptian security forces proceeded with the forcible removal of the protesters from the venue in an action in which 28 refugees were killed, more than half of which were children and women, with several protesters missing after the events. The Cairo incident illustrates what the cited report on the events has rightly called “a tragedy of failures and false expectations” regarding international humanitarian and human rights institutions.

Iterations of Technocracy

2019 ◽  
pp. 106-126
Author(s):  
Jonathan White
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
Knowing How ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Know How ◽  
Public Scrutiny

What do the practices of emergency rule imply for technocracy, traditionally the cornerstone of EU legitimacy? On one view, emergency rule spells problems for technocracy, as non-scientific criteria intrude on decision-making. Yet exceptional situations are also when the claim to expertise-based governing carries furthest. Knowing how to act in such situations, and when to circumvent existing politico-legal norms, is in some ways the very measure of expertise. This chapter evaluates these two contending theses against recent EU experience, and argues they can be reconciled once we see how claims to expertise may span theoretical and practical knowledge. Emergency rule disrupts claims to scientific ‘know-that’, and encourages would-be technocrats to rely on a form of crisis expertise centred on practical know-how. This recalibration of technocracy carries significant implications, not least in detaching institutions further from public scrutiny and demanding ever more trust from citizens.

Decision Making in Brazil and Emerging Technologies: The Case of 18F-FDG

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 235-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Willy de Sousa
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Decision Problem ◽  
Time Span ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Know How ◽  
History Of ◽  
18F Fdg ◽  
The Right ◽  
New Strategies ◽  
Over Time

The article recalls the history of the development of Fluor FDG in Brazil. Important facts that impacted this development and how this technology evolved considering a time span of more than ten years, starting from 1996, are presented in this paper. Five decisions made between 2004 and 2005 were selected and analyzed from the perspective of knowledge that a key decision maker has developed around the main elements of a decision - problem, objectives, alternatives, consequences, risks approach, and linked decisions. In conclusion, this case shows that experienced decision makers can make quality decisions when they are equipped with the appropriate information, align the relevant decisions taken over time, know how to use the right tactics at the right time and with all participants in decision making. Experienced decision makers identify opportunities where there seem to be problems, review the current strategies and visualize new strategies, and prepare themselves adequately to deal with the uncertainties.

scholarly journals Interrogating the efficiency paradigm : a study of language analysis as evidence in refugee status determination

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin Colleen Pease
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
News Media ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Pilot Project ◽  
Political Context ◽  
The Political ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Refugee Status ◽  
Language Analysis ◽  
The Subject

In 1993, Sweden commenced the unprecedented practice of using Language Analysis (LA) as evidence in refugee status determination. Since that time, Western governments trying to cope with the perceived refugee crisis have similarly adopted the tool to corroborate and undermine the nationality claims of asylum seekers crossing borders without identity documents. During this same period, language professionals, lawyers, various news media, and others across the globe have proceeded to fuel international controversy on the subject, largely challenging the linguistic integrity of the tool, while investing less energy addressing the political context of use, as well as the implications for violations of refugee rights. In 2007, Canada reflected prioritized concerns for efficiency when it made public a pilot project to address the value of this language tool in aiding status decision-making. This paper interrogates the Canadian efficiency paradigm through the Australian lens of LA in practice. In exposing the ethical and legal sites of likely disengagement should Canada proceed with implementation, this paper cautions against LA becoming the most recent assault on a Canadian protection regime already under siege.

scholarly journals The Map and the Territory: The Use of Country Information in Asylum Assessments

2021 ◽  
pp. 019791832110288
Author(s):  
Tone Maia Liodden
Keyword(s):  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Uncertain Information ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Refugee Status ◽  
Refugee Protection ◽  
Determination Process ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Objective Representation

When determining who should be accepted as a refugee, decision-makers use information about asylum-seekers’ home countries to assess the credibility of the claim and the risk of future persecution. As such, country information plays a decisive role in the outcome of asylum claims. Based on asylum case files and interviews with decision-makers in Norway, I investigate the use of country information in the refugee status determination process and compare the specific pieces of country information that decision-makers used in their assessments to landmarks on maps. Landmarks here are understood as decision-makers’ interpretations about places, customs, and political and social conditions in asylum-seekers’ home countries. To come across as credible, applicants had to demonstrate knowledge of landmarks familiar to decision-makers, but they also needed to present a story that testified to their personal experience with the landscape in their home countries. Minor deviations from the landmarks could undermine a claim’s credibility. The metaphor of the map as a seemingly objective representation of reality illustrates the authority of country information in the refugee status determination process. As I demonstrate, however, decision-makers based their knowledge of such landmarks not only on formal sources of information, but also on the narratives of other applicants, assumptions about rational behavior, and their own everyday experience with places. In line with the legal mandate to produce a binary decision, decision-makers had to consolidate uncertain information into solid landmarks that enabled them to clearly distinguish between refugees and non-refugees. Because of their important role in enabling such distinctions, landmarks are key in refugee protection on the one hand and migration control on the other.

Reason to disbelieve: evaluating the rape claims of women seeking asylum in the UK

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Baillot ◽  
Sharon Cowan ◽  
Vanessa E. Munro
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Social Group ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
National Study ◽  
Reasonable Degree ◽  
Return Home ◽  
The Uk

AbstractAsylum applicants in the UK must show, to a ‘reasonable degree of likelihood’, a well-founded fear of persecution, on the basis of race, religion, political opinion or membership of a particular social group, in the event of return ‘home’. This requirement presents myriad challenges both to claimants and decision-makers. Based on findings from a three-year national study, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, this paper explores those challenges as they relate to women seeking asylum in the UK whose applications include an allegation of rape. The study explored the extent to which difficulties relating to disclosure and credibility, which are well documented in the context of women's sexual assault allegations in the criminal justice system, might be replicated and compounded for female asylum-seekers whose applications include a claim of rape. Findings suggest that the structural and practical obstacles faced in establishing credibility, and the existence of scepticism about rape claims and asylum-seeking more generally, mean that decision-making can often be experienced as arbitrary, unjust, uninformed or contradictory, making it difficult for women asylum applicants who allege rape to find refuge in the UK.

Posttraumatic Stress and Refugee Status Decision-Making

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Herlihy ◽  
Janet Cleveland ◽  
Zachary Steel
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Posttraumatic Stress ◽  
Refugee Status

Decision making based on intuitionistic fuzzy preference relations with additive approximate consistency

2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 4041-4058
Author(s):  
Fang Liu ◽  
Xu Tan ◽  
Hui Yang ◽  
Hui Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Real Interval ◽  
Preference Relations ◽  
Intuitionistic Fuzzy ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
Fuzzy Preference Relations ◽  
Novel Concept ◽  
Fuzzy Weights ◽  
Fuzzy Preference

Intuitionistic fuzzy preference relations (IFPRs) have the natural ability to reflect the positive, the negative and the non-determinative judgements of decision makers. A decision making model is proposed by considering the inherent property of IFPRs in this study, where the main novelty comes with the introduction of the concept of additive approximate consistency. First, the consistency definitions of IFPRs are reviewed and the underlying ideas are analyzed. Second, by considering the allocation of the non-determinacy degree of decision makers’ opinions, the novel concept of approximate consistency for IFPRs is proposed. Then the additive approximate consistency of IFPRs is defined and the properties are studied. Third, the priorities of alternatives are derived from IFPRs with additive approximate consistency by considering the effects of the permutations of alternatives and the allocation of the non-determinacy degree. The rankings of alternatives based on real, interval and intuitionistic fuzzy weights are investigated, respectively. Finally, some comparisons are reported by carrying out numerical examples to show the novelty and advantage of the proposed model. It is found that the proposed model can offer various decision schemes due to the allocation of the non-determinacy degree of IFPRs.

strategi dalam pengambilan keputusan

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suci Handayani Handayani ◽  
Hade Afriansyah
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Imperfect Information ◽  
Economic Value ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Administrative Process ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Information Time ◽  
Complex Matter ◽  
General Individuals

Decision making is one element of economic value, especially in the era of globalization, and if it is not acceptable in the decision making process, we will be left behind. According to Robins, (2003: 173), Salusu, (2000: 47), and Razik and Swanson, (1995: 476) say that decision making can be interpreted as a process of choosing a number of alternatives, how to act in accordance with concepts, or rules in solving problems to achieve individual or group goals that have been formulated using a number of specific techniques, approaches and methods and achieve optimal levels of acceptance.Decision making in organizations whether a decision is made for a person or group, the nature of the decision is often determined by rules, policies, prescribed, instructions that have been derived or practices that apply. To understand decision making within the organization it is useful to view decision making as part of the overall administrative process. In general, individuals tend to use simple strategies, even if in any complex matter, to get the desired solution, because the solution is limited by imperfect information, time and costs, limited thinking and psychological stress experienced by decision makers.

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