Afterword: Brokerage as social practice

Abstract

This postface argues for a narrow and analytically strong concept of brokerage, which is oriented towards the classical definition by Boissevain. His ideal type emphasises the agency of brokers who actively pursue their own interests and act at an equal distance to the groups between which they mediate. Furthermore, the text argues for thinking of brokerage as a bundle of social practices instead of as brokers in the sense of a social type. While few social actors are fully-fledged brokers, many of them engage in brokerage.

What Should Students Learn About the Importance of Cultural Brokering in Immigrant Communities?

“…Bierschenk suggests that, rather than conceptualizing brokers as social types, "we should speak of brokerage as a bundle of social practices or a social role." 55 Hence, rather than viewing the role of cultural broker as competing with that of medical provider or clinician, cultural brokerage can and should complement the provision of effective health care delivery. In practice, cultural brokerage aligns with the AMA Code of Medical Ethics' emphasis on the physician's dedication to providing competent medical care, respecting the rights of patients, and supporting access to medical care for all people.…”

Accumulation by agricultural extension: Freedom and financial extractivism among Brazil's Landless Rural Workers' Movement (MST)

“…This primary financial relationship could involve debtor‐creditor relations, development loans, cash transfers, and retirement pensions, among other possibilities. As such, the case of financial extractivism described below bears (what Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1953 called) a conceptual “family resemblance” to the practices of market intermediaries and “brokers” described in both contemporary and classic social science literature (Bierschenk, 2021; Boissevain, 1974; Bräuchler et al, 2021; James, 2018; Koster & van Leynseeleb, 2018; Lindquist, 2015).…”