Cultural–legal brokering and gender: A study of refugee-serving institutions upon resettlement

Abstract

Increased academic attention to the intersections of refugee studies and gender studies has focused on the lives and trajectories of refugee women. In this study, we examine resettlement institutions involved with refugee women, drawing upon critical scholarship on “brokerage.” Brokers reproduce and impose the powers of the state, but also negotiate with and resist the state. We draw from interviews with resettlement workers and refugee leaders in refugee-serving institutions, focusing on one mid-sized metropolitan area in the United States. We argue that resettlement institutions enact brokering not only in the cultural domain but also the legal domain. We further posit that cultural–legal brokering is enacted via contested negotiation of idealized patriarchal values–traditions in both the countries of origin and resettlement.