In this article, we analyse the issue of identity of asylum seekers. We start with the concepts of sovereignty and borders (crucial to International Relations debates on identity and difference) in order to investigate modalities of violence and exclusion embroiled in the social relations of asylum seekers. We analysed the construction of her/his identity through everyday life encounters with difference. The article emphasizes the continuous negotiations of identity that asylum seekers experience since a border is crossed. We highlight two steps of those processes: firstly, the crossing of borders that implicates the declaration of a new identity; secondly, the everyday struggles that such persons indulge in, filtered through the testimonials of asylum seekers in Brazil.
Asylum Seekers; Borders; Sovereignty; Identity; Difference
