Brokerage and transnationalism: present and past intermediaries, social mobility, and mixed loyalties

ABSTRACT

This article brings two distinct sets of literatures in dialogue with one another: ethnohistorical studies on cultural brokerage and mediation in colonial/settler societies and studies of contemporary transnational activities. The article argues that this is productive because it throws into sharper relief three significant areas of contention that are a common thread of many empirical transnational studies, but are rarely of central concern. For each of these three identified aspects, respectively, the desire for mediation, social mobility, and mixed loyalties, it traces the historical resonance with cultural brokerage and shows how ethnohistorical research can complicate current transnational studies. It thereby challenges transnational scholarship’s focus on the newness of transnational exchange and demonstrates how ethnohistorical findings on brokers and mediators can aid the development of the research agenda of transnational studies.

KEYWORDS:

• Brokerage
• go-between
• mediator
• colonialism
• settler society
• ethnohistory

Acknowledgments

I am grateful for the generous and helpful comments by the anonymous reviewers, which have helped me to refine my argument.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Ethnohistory, ‘the illegitimate product’ of anthropology (regarded as the study of the timeless ‘Other’ without a meaningful historical past) and history (as the study of the past of ‘civilised peoples’), is itself a contentious field (Harkin 2010, 113). The field’s origin can be traced back to the US Indian Claims Commission Act in which academics became expert witnesses for land claims, advocating both on the side of indigenous peoples as well as the US state (Strong 2015). While ethnohistorians have done important and progressive work, for instance in revaluing oral sources, tracing indigenous experiences of colonisation and resistance, and introducing reflexive practices, the name and legacy of ethnohistory cannot completely avoid reinforcing the colonialist practice in which History is distinguished from ethnohistory (Strong 2015).

2. While outside the scope of this article, it is important to note that Chicana, black and postcolonial feminist scholars have made key contributions to further problematising the role of so-called mixed race women as mediators and traitors, as well as recovering the agency and resistance of the women involved (Rushin 1981; Anzaldúa 1987; Alarcón 1989).

3. I would like to thank one of the anonymous reviewers for suggesting to further explore the implications of the inverse of the argument that transnational scholarship would benefit from learning from ethnohistorical work on brokerage and regret that the limited space here does not allow me to consider this in more detail.