Interpreting asylum claims stories: a legitimistic and activist perspective on refugee status
This article shows that the volunteer interpreters construct a particular associative model close to mediation. It is constituted by peripheral actors in the implementation of asylum policies. The refugees or undocumented migrants are recruited based on their legal and social knowledge, in addition to their language skills. An ethnographic survey conducted from 2014 to 2019 within Solidarité Asile, a local voluntary association supporting asylum seekers, allowed us to highlight two mediation strategies adopted by interpreters in the work of writing asylum stories. Depending on their background and conception of refugee status, they do not understand their role in the same way: some adopt a legitimist view of asylum by considering that not all exiles are eligible for refugee status; while others are more activist and take the initiative of altering the claimant's story to bring it in line with the legal requirements. The conception of their role in and outside the associative scene, their relationship to the association and asylum seekers in their country of origin as well as the way in which they identify with refugee status are variables that can explain their positioning in one pole rather than another.