56 JUDITH BEYER at hand. Answers are more often submitted in the form of the interviewer’s handwritten notes than in form of a typed transcript as in the case of the shorter screening interview. In addition to the interviewee, a translator is often present in both types of interviews. They translate the questions into the person’s (presumed) native language or the language currently spoken by the asylum seeker, and translate their answers back into English for the state official to note down. Because the interviewer generally does not understand the language of the interviewee, he/she is dependent on the translator. Only what the translator has understood or considers ‘relevant’ is recorded. A transcript is thus a record of what an interviewee understood of what a translator translated. It is a kind of comprehension protocol, which explains the extensive use of bullet points as well as the spelling mistakes. In my first example of a particular extended interview, the applicant answered more than 140 questions. Several of these questions were clearly aimed at establishing his credibility even at this early stage of the asylum procedure. The questions asked were intended to generate material that can substitute for the fact that the applicant did not produce any identification documents. The applicant, who claimed to be of Rohingya ethnicity, explained from the outset that he had entered the country with the ID card of a Bangladeshi citizen, which he had received from a smuggler. He had never had his own identity document. In the course of the interview, which lasted several hours, the interviewer nevertheless asked several times about (missing) identity documents – a total of twenty times if one includes questions about identity cards, passports, medical certificates, school reports and residence permits. A comparison of asylum cases indicates that the interview questions and the caseworkers’ questioning techniques tend to follow a pattern of asking the same question several times, even if it had already been answered; the conversation analyst Emanuel Schegloff (1995) speaks of the creation of ‘information redundancy’. In the context of asylum procedure, I argue that this represents an attempt to generate ‘evidence’. The following sequence is taken from the first part of the extended interview, after the applicant had already clearly stated that he had fled from Burma with his parents when he was two years old.7 I: What have your parents told you about Burma? A: Dangerous for us in Burma to live. I: Did you try and find out more about the country? A: No. I: Why not? A: When I was two I left Burma because I left two years old I don’t have much knowledge about Burma. I: Did you not want to know more about the country you were born in? A: Yes I have interest. But my parents told me it was enough for me to hear. It was enough for me. I can see how meet (?) happening. When I was in [European country] I hear to. Muslims are burnt alive. I: Have you tried to find out more information about the country as an adult? A: I’m trying to see what is going on in the TV. I: Have you ever had a passport? A: I have no passport, nothing.