We are pleased to share that The Intelligible Asylum Seeker: Creating an Affectively Credible Protagonist, winner of the 2025 Global Migration Award, is now available online.
In this compelling Master’s thesis, Claire Elizabeth Eastwood examines how credibility is constructed in asylum procedures. Drawing on ethnographic research with a U.S. legal aid organisation, she shows how lawyers work to craft “affective credibility” by shaping asylum seekers’ narratives into emotionally compelling and legally intelligible stories. The thesis offers an original contribution to migration studies and the anthropology of law, highlighting the powerful role of storytelling and emotion in life-altering asylum decisions.