The commercialisation of linguistic expertise in the asylum vetting process

Abstract

This chapter examines the effects of commercialisation on the process of asylum vetting. With a focus on a specific asylum appeals case in the United Kingdom, the chapter illustrates how the privatisation of the linguistic forensic services in this process has a negative effect on the use of language for the determination of the asylum seekers’ place of origin. Using the epistemic communities as a theoretical framework, we argue that the commercialisation of the expert knowledge of the linguists involved in asylum vetting has detrimental consequences on the use of expert knowledge for the public good.