Epistemic injustice in the refugee status determination of disabled asylum claims: a critical sociolegal analysis of Germany, Greece and the UK

• Applicant: Maria Avgeri, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Principles of Law and Jurisprudence ; Social and Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 556229381

This study aims to provide a critical socio-legal analysis of the challenges that arise in the Refugee Status Determination of disabled asylum claimants. It aims to problematize the definition of disability in asylum adjudication and the application of the Convention for the Rights of People with Disabilities in three countries, namely Greece and Germany on the one side, as influential case studies for the European Union and the UK on the other side. What it aims to reveal, are the differences in practice and judicial protection in these countries, as well as features of the predominant legal culture in asylum adjudication. It seeks to do so, by a socio-legal analysis of the system of asylum adjudication in the European Union and the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), as well as the Convention for the Rights of the People with Disabilities (CRPD) ratifying states, with a particular focus in Greece, Germany and the UK after Brexit. The doctrinal analysis will be complemented with a critical textual analysis of the second instance asylum judgments and interviews of adjudicators/experts in order to reveal particular connotations and conceptualizations of the concepts of disability, persecution and membership to a particular social group, as the main elements that have to be present for acknowledging a claimant as a refugee according to the Refugee Convention 1951 and the Recast Qualification Directive of the European Union. The study goes further to employ a decolonial, relational and intersectional feminist understanding of persecution and disability as concepts that are socially located and positioned, and they are characterized by the presence/absence of constructive relationships both with the state, carers and community of the disabled individuals. It aims to advocate for an ethics of 'care' in relation to disability and asylum, that acknowledges the lack of reasonable accommodation/adjustment as a condition that can potentially lead to persecution if it results to the denial of the enjoyment of fundamental human rights. It finally attempts to provide a culturally informed conceptualization of disability and discriminatory social barriers that constitute impairment a risk of serious harm for the purposes of refugee law. This research project aims to unravel the difficulties that non-western disabled asylum claimants encounter in their quest to be acknowledged as refugees by countries such as Greece, Germany and the UK and the epistemic injustice that renders their experiences and vulnerabilities unintelligible, not valid or worthy of protection. Finally, the project seeks to understand how the pluralist system of human rights and refugee law, as applied in the European Union and the UK post Brexit, accommodate the needs of disabled asylum applicants fleeing from persecution from their countries of origin and positioning themselves as truth-making agents in the epistemic processes of asylum adjudication at the countries of reception.

• DFG Programme: WBP Position