Afterword: Brokerage as social practice

Abstract

This afterword 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.