Analyzing “Threat” in Asylum Reception: Context, Materiality and Institutional Texts in High-Stakes Intercultural Communication

Traditional theories of intercultural communication often overlook the multiplicity of interpretations and the influence of power, materiality, and institutional structures on everyday interactions. In high-stakes environments such as asylum reception, communication is shaped by broader political, economic, and social systems that structure both professional practices and interpersonal relations. This study examines how intercultural communication unfolds within a Finnish asylum centre (AC), focusing on how “threat” and “threatening” are constructed, interpreted, and managed by practitioners. It also demonstrates how Institutional Ethnography (IE) can serve as a theoretical and methodological tool for analysing the institutional and material conditions that shape communication in such settings. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork (2017–2020), the study analyses Reports from Reception, ethnographic fieldnotes, and institutional texts using IE to trace how power, material conditions, and bureaucratic discourse shape meaning-making around “threat.” Professional communication in the AC is profoundly influenced by institutional frameworks, limited resources, and spatial confinement. Material scarcity and emotional strain often trigger situations interpreted as “threats,” which are then circulated through institutional reporting systems, reinforcing control-oriented discourses and overshadowing their structural origins. Institutional Ethnography reveals that professional practices are mediated through textual and institutional power relations rather than purely cultural differences. The study calls for context-sensitive, socially just models of intercultural competence that foreground power, materiality, and institutional constraints to promote more humane and equitable professional practices in asylum reception.