This article suggests ways of improving the interaction between asylum seekers and host States within the confines of the refugee status determination process. It advocates for a high-knowledge decision maker profile and explores new approaches to fact finding and credibility assessment centred on the notions that truth in the asylum context is relative, not fixed, and that dialogue and unfettered refugee speech should be privileged as much as possible in the hearing room. The proposals find their inspiration in empirical data and interdisciplinary academic thought, and are designed to conform to the legal, cultural, psychological, and discursive challenges inherent in the assessment of refugee narrative. © The Author (2017). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

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refugee decision making asylum seeker interdisciplinary approach academic research