Possibilities for epistemic violence in asylum process

In 2015, Europe noticed that Common European Asylum System did not function in a “crises”-like-situation. Now, the European Union aims to ensure an efficient and humane migration management. However, migration is highly polarising issue, fuelled by populist rhetoric. Thus, the future migration management must be based on scientifically discovered implications of policies. Here, we provide a lesson from Finland. We evaluate Finnish asylum process through analysing the legislation, legal practice and the experiences of 70 former asylum-seekers. We merge these viewpoints through the concept of epistemic violence understood here as a failure in linguistic exchanges harming the speaker. We examine whether the legal amendments in Finland, increased the possibilities for epistemic violence in asylum process. At worst, epistemic violence results wrongly motivated decisions in asylum cases. More research is needed in times of efficiency pressure regarding asylum processes and overall contestation related to the legitimacy of the European Union migration policies.