Periodic Reporting for period 4 - BROKERS (Participatory Urban Governance between Democracy and Clientelism: Brokers and (In)formal Politics)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2021-02-01 al 2022-01-31
This ethnographic research project analyses the role of brokerage – the social mechanism of mediation between different groups or levels in society – in urban governance arrangements, citizen participation, and citizen initiatives, and its impact on the state-citizen relationship. It does so at a moment in which brokers, identified as citizens who officially ‘speak for’ and ‘act on behalf of’ their fellow citizens vis-à-vis the state, have become a persistent presence in democratic urban governance across the globe. Through their political representation and negotiations, brokers impact state-citizen relations and decision-making processes regarding the allocation of resources such as housing, welfare, infrastructure, security, and social care. As brokerage in governance always consists of both formal/official and informal/personal actions and transactions, this study investigates how brokers intertwine practices, discourses, and networks both inside and outside officially sanctioned channels and institutions.
BROKERS focuses on urban governance arrangements, forms of citizen participation, and citizen (grassroots) initiatives that seek to address the needs of residents of underprivileged neighbourhoods. These neighbourhoods are particularly relevant to this research as their low-income residents most directly experience changes in governance and its resource flows, be they direct or via brokers.
This project compares brokerage in four different cities, two in the Global North and two in the Global South. These cities are Rotterdam (the Netherlands), Manchester (UK), Medellin (Colombia) and Recife (Brazil). In these cities, we focus on specific types of brokers: community leaders, street-level bureaucrats, welfare advisers, activists, and active citizens; some develop their own grassroots initiatives, while others are invited by the authorities to act as representatives of other citizens.
Combining research from these divergent schools of thought, this project approaches brokers as ‘assemblers’, connective agents who actively bring together different government and citizen actors, institutions and resources, and who combine formal and informal politics. In so doing, this approach combines recent theories on assemblages – which view urban governance, citizen participation, and grassroots initiatives as an amalgam of different actors, institutions and resources that function together – with an anthropological actor orientation. The research is carried out by a project team consisting of four PhD researchers (Adam Moore, Janne Heederik, Lieke van der Veer and Sven da Silva), two Postdoctoral researchers (Flávio Eiró and Carolina Frossard), and the PI (Martijn Koster).
BROKERS has been very successful in achieving its goals. By using an anthropological, actor-oriented approach to the study of brokerage, the project has contributed to a better understanding of the roles of brokers in urban governance, citizen participation, and different forms of grassroots initiatives. It has analysed how different types of brokers (community leaders, local activists, active citizens, and frontline workers such as street level bureaucrats and welfare advisers) bridge gaps between the state and the population through both formal and informal ways. These brokers play crucial roles in the functioning of urban governance, citizen participation, and grassroots initiatives. The project also demonstrated how, in the acts of brokerage, electoral politics often becomes part of governance arrangements, giving rise to debates about how democratic governance interacts with clientelism. The project's innovative approach which sees brokers as assemblers – as connective agents – in wider assemblages advanced our theories on the interplay between individual actors and wider structures of rule, authority and belonging, such as the state.
The project has also contributed to advancing the North-South dialogue in anthropology, urban studies, and geography. In this debate, BROKERS has contributed to making concepts, theories and bodies of literature that were limited to studies of either the Global North or the Global South available across this divide. The project applied concepts such as clientelism, and informal politics, and theories on the imagination of the state, that were mainly used in studies of the Global South, to its studies in Manchester and Rotterdam. At the same time, notions of active citizenship and self-responsibilisation, mainly used in the Global North, proved to be a useful starting point for critically analysing urban governance, citizen participation, and grassroots initiatives in Recife and Medellin.
BROKERS focuses on urban governance arrangements, forms of citizen participation, and citizen (grassroots) initiatives that seek to address the needs of residents of underprivileged neighbourhoods. These neighbourhoods are particularly relevant to this research as their low-income residents most directly experience changes in governance and its resource flows, be they direct or via brokers.
This project compares brokerage in four different cities, two in the Global North and two in the Global South. These cities are Rotterdam (the Netherlands), Manchester (UK), Medellin (Colombia) and Recife (Brazil). In these cities, we focus on specific types of brokers: community leaders, street-level bureaucrats, welfare advisers, activists, and active citizens; some develop their own grassroots initiatives, while others are invited by the authorities to act as representatives of other citizens.
Combining research from these divergent schools of thought, this project approaches brokers as ‘assemblers’, connective agents who actively bring together different government and citizen actors, institutions and resources, and who combine formal and informal politics. In so doing, this approach combines recent theories on assemblages – which view urban governance, citizen participation, and grassroots initiatives as an amalgam of different actors, institutions and resources that function together – with an anthropological actor orientation. The research is carried out by a project team consisting of four PhD researchers (Adam Moore, Janne Heederik, Lieke van der Veer and Sven da Silva), two Postdoctoral researchers (Flávio Eiró and Carolina Frossard), and the PI (Martijn Koster).
BROKERS has been very successful in achieving its goals. By using an anthropological, actor-oriented approach to the study of brokerage, the project has contributed to a better understanding of the roles of brokers in urban governance, citizen participation, and different forms of grassroots initiatives. It has analysed how different types of brokers (community leaders, local activists, active citizens, and frontline workers such as street level bureaucrats and welfare advisers) bridge gaps between the state and the population through both formal and informal ways. These brokers play crucial roles in the functioning of urban governance, citizen participation, and grassroots initiatives. The project also demonstrated how, in the acts of brokerage, electoral politics often becomes part of governance arrangements, giving rise to debates about how democratic governance interacts with clientelism. The project's innovative approach which sees brokers as assemblers – as connective agents – in wider assemblages advanced our theories on the interplay between individual actors and wider structures of rule, authority and belonging, such as the state.
The project has also contributed to advancing the North-South dialogue in anthropology, urban studies, and geography. In this debate, BROKERS has contributed to making concepts, theories and bodies of literature that were limited to studies of either the Global North or the Global South available across this divide. The project applied concepts such as clientelism, and informal politics, and theories on the imagination of the state, that were mainly used in studies of the Global South, to its studies in Manchester and Rotterdam. At the same time, notions of active citizenship and self-responsibilisation, mainly used in the Global North, proved to be a useful starting point for critically analysing urban governance, citizen participation, and grassroots initiatives in Recife and Medellin.
All team members have been able to carry out their research and publish about it. The PI, in collaboraton with the team, has been able to work on the comparative element of the project.
We have published several peer-reviewed articles, special issues, book chapters, and professional publications.
We have organized several international seminars and two international conferences in Nijmegen. We have presented several papers at international conferences. The PI has been invited to give several presentations at other universities, sometimes with Postdoc Eiró or PhDs. With two other colleagues, the PI and Postdoc Eiró have organized a panel at an international conference, in which the whole team participated.
We have also had very fruitful meetings with local practitioners, public officials, NGO members and activists in all four field sites, providing a space for knowledge transfer.
The five most significant achievements of this project:
1. Koster, M. & Y.P.B. van Leynseele, eds. (2018) Assembling development across the globe: Ethnographies of brokerage. Special issue of Ethnos 83(5).
2. Moore, A., F. Eiró, & M. Koster (forthcoming 2022) Illegal housing in Medellín: Autoconstruction and the materiality of hope. Accepted in Latin American Politics and Society
3. Koster, M. & F. Eiró (2022) Clientelism in Northeast Brazil: Brokerage within and outside electoral times. Contemporary Social Science, OnlineFirst 1-13
4. Koster, M. (2021) Political anthropology. In: Pedersen, L. & L. Cliggett (eds) The SAGE handbook of cultural anthropology. London: Sage, pp. 330-347
5. Acosta, R., F. Eiró, I. Koch & M. Koster (eds) (2020) Urban Struggles. Feature of online Focaal Blog (special issue). www.focaalblog.com/features/urban-struggles/
We have published several peer-reviewed articles, special issues, book chapters, and professional publications.
We have organized several international seminars and two international conferences in Nijmegen. We have presented several papers at international conferences. The PI has been invited to give several presentations at other universities, sometimes with Postdoc Eiró or PhDs. With two other colleagues, the PI and Postdoc Eiró have organized a panel at an international conference, in which the whole team participated.
We have also had very fruitful meetings with local practitioners, public officials, NGO members and activists in all four field sites, providing a space for knowledge transfer.
The five most significant achievements of this project:
1. Koster, M. & Y.P.B. van Leynseele, eds. (2018) Assembling development across the globe: Ethnographies of brokerage. Special issue of Ethnos 83(5).
2. Moore, A., F. Eiró, & M. Koster (forthcoming 2022) Illegal housing in Medellín: Autoconstruction and the materiality of hope. Accepted in Latin American Politics and Society
3. Koster, M. & F. Eiró (2022) Clientelism in Northeast Brazil: Brokerage within and outside electoral times. Contemporary Social Science, OnlineFirst 1-13
4. Koster, M. (2021) Political anthropology. In: Pedersen, L. & L. Cliggett (eds) The SAGE handbook of cultural anthropology. London: Sage, pp. 330-347
5. Acosta, R., F. Eiró, I. Koch & M. Koster (eds) (2020) Urban Struggles. Feature of online Focaal Blog (special issue). www.focaalblog.com/features/urban-struggles/
This research has developed a new theoretical framework for analyzing brokerage in urban governance, citizen participation, and grassroots governance initiatives. Its theoretical framework draws on the notion that formal and informal politics are intertwined. The project has advanced insights into brokerage beyond the state of the art. The project has also contributed to advancing the North-South dialogue in anthropology, urban studies, and geography. In this debate, BROKERS has contributed to making concepts, theories and bodies of literature that were limited to studies of either the Global North or the Global South available across this divide.