“Searching for Proper Names: the Return of Denotation in Transidiomatic Interactions.”
Mobile people and digital technologies are transforming late-modern communication, increasing social interactions between people who lack shared language and knowledge. Because such interactions often lead to misunderstanding, a common practice is the privileging of denotational signs over indexical ones. Using ethnographic evidence from asylum cases in various European states (Italy, Belgium, and the United Kingdom), this talk explores the problematic search for denotational referentiality in transidiomatic institutional interactions. Asylum officers, in particular, routinely rely on common-sense assumptions about the denotational power of proper names (especially of personal and place names) to determine the credibility of a particular asylum applicant’s testimony. However, this reliance on denotation can have serious negative effects on asylum adjudication, especially in the assessment of asylum applicants’ referential accuracy, which is considered a litmus test for determining applicants’ credibility.