ASPECTS
archive, digital, human-rights, law, mapping, migration
TEAM
Seifeldeen Elfouly
YEAR
2023
ABTRACT
I developed two interactive maps of common legal procedures linked to spatial aspects in asylum seeking cases in the EU. The online archive “European Database of Asylum Law (EDAL)” with a body of 1.800 collected cases (1985–2021) serves as a basis for the maps. Developed with the aim to visually emphasise repetitive patterns and sequences in asylum cases and thus enable a comprehensive overview, the maps are intended as a tool for researchers, activists and investigative journalists. The aim is not to simplify the courtroom procedures or asylum laws, but rather to manifest the complexity of legal procedures in a visual medium; to analyse how the closed cases are mediated and represented to the public as well as the shift from the courtroom to the digital memory.
CONTEXT
In the context of asylum cases in the EU, mechanisms of law remain ambiguous in their language, structure and logic. My approach is an attempt to represent the law beyond its textual facade, while raising critical questions on the court procedures and its decisions making process in asylum cases. Can data maps offer a hybrid medium for countering legal procedures or for elaborating fragments of legal double standards? Do arbitrary decisions exist in the legal mind? What roles can data maps play in investigative journalism and legal activism? Can data maps frame critical patterns in legal decision-making?