The Communicative Space: Painting the Evidence and Plausibility in Asylum Court Hearings

This article explores the state's control not only at national borders but also at the boundaries of language, culture-specific terms and legal jargon, by scrutinising how court participants are both listened to and interpreted in legal proceedings. Based on participant observation in Slovakian asylum court hearings and pre- and post-trial ethnographic interviews with asylum applicants, attorneys, interpreters and state officials, this study examines: (1) how ‘communicative space’ is established and negotiated in asylum court hearings; (2) how this space relates to the plausibility during evidence-making and (3) how Diego Velázquez's painting Las Meninas offers explanatory power for understanding dynamics in legal settings. By drawing on the work of ethnographers, philosophers, socio-legal and art theorists, this article provides new insights into the role of communicative space in plausibility assessments.