African Asylum at a Crossroads

Iris Berger, is Vincent O'Leary Professor of History at the University at Albany, State University of New York. She is the author of South Africa in World History.Tricia Redeker Hepner is associate professor of anthropology and director of the Disasters, Displacement, and Human Rights Program at the University of Tennessee. She is the author of Soldiers, Martyrs, Traitors, and Exiles: Political Conflict in Eritrea and the Diaspora.Benjamin N. Lawrance is a professor of history and, by courtesy, law at the University of Arizona, where he teaches courses in history and law about Africa, slavery, migration, refugees, and asylum. He has published twenty books, including Amistad's Orphans: An Atlantic Story of Children, Slavery, and Smuggling. He is the emeritus editor in chief of the African Studies Review.Joanna T. Tague is assistant professor of African history at Denison University in Granville, Ohio.Meredith Terretta is an associate professor of history at the University of Ottawa and the author of Petitioning for Our Rights, Fighting for Our Nation: The History of the Democratic Union of Cameroonian Women, 1949–1960.Amy Shuman is a professor of folklore and narrative at the Ohio State University. She is a Guggenheim Fellow and the author of Storytelling Rights: The Uses of Oral and Written Communication by Urban Adolescents; Other People's Stories: Entitlement Claims and the Critique of Empathy; Rejecting Refugees: Political Asylum in the 21st Century (with Carol Bohmer); and Political Asylum Deceptions: The Culture of Suspicion (with Carol Bohmer).

"This is a first-rate collection of original essays focused on asylum jurisprudence involving African refugees…. These essays are provocative, well documented, and eloquent. The authors examine a subject that has been largely overlooked: the extraordinarily significant role of experts in legal processes…. The impressive contributors are anthropologists, historians, and legal scholars who offer provocative remarks about cases including many in which they served as expert witnesses."

• * Foreword. Penelope Andrews* Preface and Acknowledgments* Introduction. Law, Expertise, and Protean Ideas about African Migrants Benjamin N. Lawrance, Iris Berger, Tricia Redeker Hepner, Joanna T. Tague, and Meredith Terretta*1. Before Asylum and the Expert Witness Mozambican Refugee Settlement and Rural Development in Southern Tanzania, 1964-75 Joanna T. Tague*2. Fraudulent Asylum Seeking as Transnational Mobilization The Case of Cameroon Meredith Terretta*3. The Evolving Refugee Definition How Shifting Elements of Eligibility Affect the Nature and Focus of Expert Testimony in Asylum Proceedings Karen Musalo*4. Expert Evidence in British Asylum Courts The Judicial Assessment of Evidence on Ethnic Discrimination and Statelessness in Ethiopia John Campbell*5. "The Immigration People Know the Stories. There's One for Each Country" The Case of Mauritania E . Ann McDougall*6. Cultural Silences as an Excuse for Injustice The Problems of Documentary Proof Carol Bohmer and Amy Shuman*7. Between Advocacy and Deception Crafting an African Asylum Narrative Iris Berger*8. Allegations, Evidence, and Evaluation Asylum Seeking in a World of Witchcraft Katherine Luongo*9. Sexual Minorities among African Asylum Claimants Human Rights Regimes, Bureaucratic Knowledge, and the Era of Sexual Rights Diplomacy Charlotte Walker-Said*10. The "Asylum-Advocacy Nexus" in Anthropological Perspective Agency, Activism, and the Construction of Eritrean Political Identities Tricia Redeker Hepner* Afterword Fallou Ngom* About the Authors* Index