Autoethnographic study of applying service journeys to asylum applications

Abstract

Just as the COVID-19 pandemic was starting to fade, the Russia–Ukraine conflict erupted into a large-scale war. This caused a new influx of refugees to many European countries. In this case study, through an autoethnographic service journey, we investigate the process of applying for asylum in Norway. We aim to understand the parts of the journey that work well and the issues that still require attention. By analysing the data collected, we can see that there are two main underlying issues, which are creating transparency and building trust between the applicant and the service system involved in asylum seeking processes. We noted that in this individual case, trust was constructed by the extent to which the officials treated the applicant as an equal. Making the entire asylum application journey visible from the first step is one way to find approaches to improve this process in the future.