Asylum procedures are based on screening and thus categorization. Ideologically, categorizing is a way of trying to understand who this "Other" is who arrives in our society, and to distinguish - or not - between them and us. We speak of illegal immigrants, migrants, economic migrants, refugees, exiles, travelers, undocumented migrants, etc.  It is the laws and administrative procedures that decide who will be an asylum seeker and then a statutory refugee or not.

It is therefore in the name of this performative ambition of categorization that refugee sorting policies have been put in place.

But in legal terms, these categorizations have a power that is all the more restrictive because they are performative. The verification of the categorization criteria imposes a series of intensive tests and questioning, which transforms the procedure into a "stress test". This article seeks to describe the different steps and categorizations that occur in European countries through the testimony of Mamadou Ba who has gone through these experiences in both Belgium and Greece.