Telling stories: Credibility and the representation of social actors in Australian asylum appeals

What is it about?

This article analyses a set of guidelines on assessing the credibility asylum applicants in an Australian tribunal and also examines a set of decisions where credibility was a major issue. It uses Critical Discourse Analysis to explore how these texts conceptualize different actors' roles in the application process.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

The article is important as it uncovers the many communication and language related challenges that asylum seekers face and finds that the official guidance and decision making appears to be unaware of many of these challenges. This means that these processes may not be as fair as they first appear.