What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Credibility? Refugee Appeals in Italy

This chapter focuses on the first level of appeal in the Italian refugee status determination procedure. I use the “credibility issue” as a lens through which to observe how this notion is employed at the tribunals of Bologna and Turin, simultaneously as a core issue in the determination procedure, a sensitive category to handle with care, and an almost-empty shell used for purposes stretching out far beyond the tribunals themselves. Such purposes can only be grasped when shifting the gaze from the mechanics of civil law as enacted inside specific local sites, towards national and supra-national migratory policies, rooted in an entangling culture of denial that strongly impact on local-level decisional procedures of recognition or rejection.