ASYLUM INTERVIEWS IN THE UK 63 5. This procedure is in line with that of my anthropological colleagues working in the British or the American asylum systems (Bibler Coutin and Fortin 2023; Good 2004, 2007; Höhne 2016; Kelly 2012). 6. See also Michael Herzfeld’s (2025) recent critique of informed consent. In all the cases in which a judge has declared a case ‘confidential’, I deleted the entire file after submitting my report and do not draw on this data in any way. 7. Burma became part of British India in 1886. It was the last country added to the British empire. The country achieved independence in 1948 and was renamed Myanmar in 1988, but the UK government continues to refer to it by its colonial name. While Rohingya were citizens of Burma in the past, in 1982 a new citizenship law rendered them stateless. Pogroms against the ethnic minority occurred in 1978, 1991 and from 2016 onwards. The refugee camps in Bangladesh, where roughly one million Rohingya live, are world-wide the largest. Rohingya are discriminated against in both Myanmar and Bangladesh. References Affolter, L. 2021. Asylum matters: on the front line of administrative decision-making. Cham: Palgrave. Andreassen, R. 2020. ‘Social media surveillance, LGBTQ refugees and asylum’, First Monday https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v26i1.10653 (accessed 23 February 2025). Beyer, J. 2022. ‘The common sense of expert activists: practitioners, scholars, and the problem of statelessness in Europe’, Dialectical Anthropology 46: 457–473. Beyer, J. 2023. ‘“Illegal” migration and the othering of activist lawyers in the UK’, Activist Lawyer 18 December. https://www.activistlawyer.com/post/illegal-migration-and-the-othering-of-activ​ ist-lawyers-in-the-uk (accessed 23 February 2025). Bezzano, J. and J. Carter 2018. ‘Statelessness in practice: implementation of the UK Statelessness Application Procedure’, University of Liverpool Law Clinic. https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/me​ dia/livacuk/law/4-liverpool-law-clinic/Statelessness,in,Practice.pdf (accessed 23 February 2025). Bibler Coutin, S. and V. Fortin 2023. ‘The craft of translation: documentary practices within immigration advocacy in the United States’, Political and Legal Anthropology Review 46: 24–38. Bolt, D. 2017. An inspection of asylum intake and casework. Report. Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Integration, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a81eacfed915d74​ e6234cf3/An_Inspection_of_Asylum_intake_and_casework.pdf (accessed 23 February 2025). Brewer, K. 2018. ‘Asylum decision-maker: “it’s a lottery”’, BBC 8 May. https://www.bbc.com/news​ /stories-43555766 (accessed 23 February 2025). Campbell, J. 2020. ‘Examining procedural unfairness and credibility findings in the UK asylum system’, Refugee Survey Quarterly 39: 56–75. Clifford, J. 1988. Identity in Mashpee, in J. Clifford, The predicament of culture: twentieth century ethnography, literature and art, 277–346. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Coffey, G. 2003. ‘The credibility of credibility evidence at the refugee review tribunal’, International Journal of Refugee Law 15: 377–417. Demian, M. 2008. ‘Fictions of intention in the “cultural defense”’, American Anthropologist 110: 432–442. Dequen, J. 2013. ‘Constructing the refugee figure in France: ethnomethodology of a decisional process’, International Journal of Refugee Law 25: 449–469. Drew, P. 1992. Contested evidence in courtroom cross-examination: the case of a trial for rape, in P. Drew and J. Heritage (eds.), Talk at work: interaction in institutional settings, 470–520. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dupret, B. 2016. Adjudication in action: an ethnomethodology of law, morality and justice. Farnham: Ashgate.