This article diagnoses and critiques a type of governmentality associated with waiting during
protracted asylum appeal procedures by drawing upon data from a multi-methodological study
of asylum adjudication in Europe. Focusing on Austria, Germany and Italy, we explore the use
of integration-related considerations in asylum appeal ...
This article diagnoses and critiques a type of governmentality associated with waiting during
protracted asylum appeal procedures by drawing upon data from a multi-methodological study
of asylum adjudication in Europe. Focusing on Austria, Germany and Italy, we explore the use
of integration-related considerations in asylum appeal processes by looking at the ways in
which these considerations permeate judges’ decision-making, particularly, but not
exclusively, on the granting of national, non-EU harmonised protection statuses. Building on
insights from the literature on conditional integration we question the implicit socio-political
biases and moral assumptions that underpin this permeation. We show that the use of
integration-related considerations in asylum appeals transforms migrant waiting into a period
of probation during which rejected asylum seekers’ conducts are governed and tested in relation
to the use of time. More than simply waiting patiently, rejected asylum seekers are expected to
wait productively, whereby productivity is assessed through the neoliberal imperatives of
entrepreneurship, autonomy and self-improvement. We thus contribute to scholarship on
migrant waiting by moving beyond an emphasis on the contradictory character of waiting, as
both imposition and potentiality, and showing how time is capitalised by state authorities even
when – and actually because – it offers opportunities for migrants.