THE CULTURAL BROKER: INSIGHTS FROM HISTORICAL STUDIES

Within anthropological and ethno-historical research, the concept of “cultural broker” describes individuals who mediated the encounters between indigenous communities and colonizer or settler communities. European colonization of, migration to, and settlement in so-called new continents elicited the need for actors who could facilitate exchanges between communities whose core beliefs and values were considered largely incomprehensible to one another.

These needs called for a particular type of mobile and hybrid actor. Although settlers or colonizers sometimes acted as intermediaries, some of the most famous cultural brokers originated in indigenous communities. Indigenous people sometimes were kidnapped by European settlers, instructed in their language and values, and then sent back to act as messengers. In other cases, cultural brokers were recruited by their own communities to operate as advocates, or they were the product of policies that encouraged interracial marriages (Kidwell Reference Kidwell1992) as well as the exchange of children (Cohen Reference Cohen and Abbattista2011). Some individuals also actively pursued the role of broker, attracted by its economic and political benefits.

Following historian Hinderaker (Reference Hinderaker, Deloria and Salisbury2004), cultural brokers should not only be defined by the distinct brokerage acts they performed (i.e., translation, diplomacy, trade negotiation, and religious mediation). It is important that brokers also be defined by who they were: their mixed heritage, or trans-culturalization (signified by pluri-linguality, adoption of colonial dress, and/or conversion to Christianity), facilitated their adoption of the role of broker in the first instance (Sasz Reference Sasz1994). However, it was their protracted exposure to various sociocultural influences that allowed them to move easily from language translation to more complex acts of intermediation.

The role of broker also cannot be understood in abstraction from the power relationships among communities. Because all exchanges were shaped by the relationships between cultural brokers and the communities they served, cultural brokers were scrutinized continuously for evidence of their integrity (Hinderaker Reference Hinderaker, Deloria and Salisbury2004). Any suggestion that their acts were led by personal interests or sought to safeguard the interests of one community over another sufficed to compromise their efforts. This helps in understanding why cultural brokers so often are remembered as outcasts and tragic figures despised by both communities. Caught in the power struggle between two unequal parties, many brokers found themselves “in an oddly uncomfortable position, at the center of important activities yet isolated and vulnerable as the result of their unique role” (Hinderaker Reference Hinderaker, Deloria and Salisbury2004, 358).

Although there is little systematic research on the conditions for successful brokerage, three important insights can be derived from the literature. The first condition echoes the previous discussion: brokerage was more likely to lead to solutions considered fair by both settler and indigenous communities when the broker managed to establish mutual relationships of trust (Stovel and Shaw Reference Stovel and Shaw2012, 151–4). In this sense, brokers’ ability to draw on various sociopolitical and cultural repertoires was both their power base and their Achilles’ heel. Whereas their cultural versatility facilitated access to both communities and enhanced their capacity to evoke trust, any appearance of partiality or skewed loyalties made them susceptible to distrust. As a result, they often were perceived as traitors who take the opposite side rather than mediators who balance diverging sets of interests (Metcalf Reference Metcalf2005, 2).

Second, the success of brokers depended greatly on the level of power symmetry between indigenous and settler or colonizer communities. As colonizers and settlers progressively gained economic and military power, brokers became increasingly dependent on them, which compromised their perceived integrity.

Third, closely related to the former condition, brokers’ successes depended on the extent to which indigenous communities managed to exercise control over the selection and training of brokers. An important means of control (and resistance) was restriction of knowledge transfers, such as the refusal to teach indigenous languages to colonizers or settlers. Where natives succeeded, the outcomes of brokerage better reflected their interests (Cohen Reference Cohen and Abbattista2011, 234).

Scholars also addressed the role of brokers’ personal interests. Salovesh (Reference Salovesh, Holloma and Arutiunov1987) elaborated on potential tensions between brokers’ personal and community interests in his study of cultural brokers operating in 1930s Mexico. He concluded: “[f]or the broker to succeed as broker, he must try to control those [cultural] gates so as to guarantee that only the broker himself may pass them freely” (Salovesh Reference Salovesh, Holloma and Arutiunov1987, 368; emphasis in original). Although this conclusion too radically divorces brokers’ personal interests from their communities’ interests, Salovesh’s analysis helps in understanding the power field in which cultural brokers operate. In contexts in which their services are considered needed, brokers simultaneously feature as symbolic bridges that connect and as gatekeepers who keep groups separate. In fact, the demand for brokerage depends on perceiving social groups as distinct and disconnected from one another. This insight—that the presence of brokers already constitutes intergroup relationships in a particular way—is one that we seek to contribute to the literature on preferable descriptive representatives.

PREFERABLE DESCRIPTIVE REPRESENTATIVES

Dovi’s (Reference Dovi2002) concept of “preferable descriptive representatives” reflects two central insights from the literature on social-group representation. The first is that shared lived experiences of subordination are the most effective starting points for group advocacy. The second is that not all descriptive representatives will promote the interests of the social group with which they are associated. Combined, these two insights explain the search for standards that would allow minority constituents to better hold “their” representatives to account.

Before specifying Dovi’s (Reference Dovi2002) standards for preferable descriptive representatives, it is important to elaborate on her relational account of social groups. Rather than conceive of social groups as fixed, neatly contained, and readily identifiable entities, she treats social groups as dynamic, fluid, and context-bound. What distinguishes one social group from another is the different ways in which systems of domination (e.g., gender, “race”/ethnicity, age, and class) structure members’ lived experiences. This conception of social groups cautions against essentialism: it neither conceives of the effects of systems of domination as given nor treats group members as quasi-uniform individuals who perceive their social experiences in the same way (Young Reference Young1989).

Reflecting her anti-essentialist approach, Dovi (Reference Dovi2002) defined “preferable descriptive representatives” as representatives who have strong mutual relationships with dispossessed subgroups. Such mutuality, based on reciprocal recognition, makes it more likely that descriptive representatives will promote “their” group’s perspective in a manner that is considerate of within-group diversity, as opposed to imposing their proper, invariably limited experiences (Strolovitch Reference Strolovitch2006).

This conceptualization, we argue, is helpful in understanding that what makes some descriptive representatives preferable over others has less to do with the promotion of particular group interests (i.e., the “what” question) than with the ways in which descriptive representatives promote these interests (i.e., the “how” question) (cf. Severs, Erzeel, and Celis Reference Severs, Erzeel and Celis2016). The promotion of group interests, for instance, is unlikely to be satisfactory if it reifies intersectional inequalities within a social group. Stated differently, our standards should carefully consider the ways in which descriptive representatives can contribute to “undoing” the work of historical processes of marginalization (Williams Reference Williams1998).

This insight, however, has implications that reach far beyond Dovi’s (Reference Dovi2002) conceptualization of preferable descriptive representatives. Attention to intragroup diversity will not suffice to undo the work of marginalization. Closer attention also is needed for the ways in which descriptive representatives (re)constitute intergroup relationships. This implies that before we can specify standards for preferable descriptive representatives, we first must have a solid understanding of the nature of prevailing power relationships and how ethnic-minority representatives can reify or dismantle them.

At this point, it is interesting to return to the literature on colonial cultural brokers. Although ethnic-minority representatives are not formally appointed the task of mediating relationships between cultural communities, they routinely are perceived as a type of “go-between.” Empirical research, for instance, has demonstrated that representatives’ descriptive characteristics evoke relationships of trust and shape minority constituents’ expectations. Because minority constituents expect “their” representatives to promote their interests, they also monitor more closely the actions of ethnic-minority representatives (Tate Reference Tate2003). Political parties also actively recruit minority representatives to enhance their demographic representativeness and gain access to minority electorates that otherwise are deemed unreachable by majority representatives.

These diverging expectations position ethnic-minority representatives in a power field that closely resembles the situation of the colonial cultural broker. Like the broker, minority representatives are expected to simultaneously serve the interests of majority and minority groups. This explains why minority representatives so easily fall prey to accusations of betrayal; similar to the colonial broker in the past, the integrity of minority representatives is under increased scrutiny when existing power inequalities are amplified by growing distrust between majority and minority groups. As a result, the room for maneuvering—much needed for a representative to be successful—becomes increasingly narrow. This affects the range of representative strategies available to them. When minority representatives stray too far from mainstream representative repertoires, their claims are unlikely to resonate with their parties. Alternatively, when their claims appeal too greatly to mainstream audiences, they may be perceived as betraying minority perspectives.

Another relevant insight can be drawn from the literature on colonial cultural brokers. As Salovesh (Reference Salovesh, Holloma and Arutiunov1987) indicated, the perceived need for “go-betweens” already constitutes the relationships between social groups in a particular way. Parties’ assumptions that minority candidates would enhance their reach into minority constituents signals that the latter are perceived as distinct units whose identity, values, and norms only marginally overlap or crisscross the majority culture. It is partly because minority interests and values are considered incomprehensible to members belonging to the majority group that minority representatives are needed in the first place.

This sensitizes us to the ways in which the prevailing discourse conditions the ways in which minority representatives may contribute to (re)constituting intergroup relationships on more equitable terms. Like the colonial cultural brokers, minority representatives often are depicted in “mainstream” media as being both “exemplary and exceptional” (de Jong Reference de Jong, Dhawan, Fink, Leinius and Mageza-Barthel2016)—as belonging to their social group but at the same time standing apart from it. This discourse keeps power relationships firmly in place: the label of “exceptionality” simultaneously lauds ethnic-minority representatives for their social mobility toward positions predominantly associated with the majority but also suggests that few minority members can follow in their footsteps. Although such discourse may be deemed helpful for problematizing structural obstacles that limit social mobility, they may be less conducive when representatives’ exemplary function is too greatly emphasized. In these instances, their presence in politics not only solidifies perceived boundaries between social groups but also risks penalizing members of ethnic-minority groups for their own inability to overcome structural inequalities.

We clarify this point by turning to the case of former US President Barack Obama, who often was criticized for not speaking out strongly enough against racial discrimination—especially against the backdrop of heightened visibility of racist police violence. However, throughout his presidency, Obama actively resisted discourses that invoked his election as evidence that America had entered an era of postracialism in which race inequalities have been reduced to such an extent that they are no longer a topic of debate. Consider the following statement Obama made in an interview: “There’s no black male my age, who’s a professional, who hasn’t come out of a restaurant and is waiting for their car and somebody didn’t hand them their car keys” (Sobieraj Westfall Reference Sobieraj Westfall2014).

First, Obama’s statement draws attention to the ways in which racism continues to restrain the opportunities available to African Americans, thereby debunking the myth of a postracial era. Second, by adding that “[y]es, it had happened to me as well” (Sobieraj Westfall Reference Sobieraj Westfall2014), Obama underlined that no amount of individual effort on the part of African Americans could prevent them from being affected by racism, thereby preventing less successful African Americans from being penalized. Third, Obama’s alignment with the experiences of other African Americans prevents him from being perceived as an “exceptional” and unique member of the African American community. Instead, by marrying the position of most powerful man in the world to that of denigrated subject, he reinserted fluidity into the symbolic boundaries drawn between social groups, thereby potentially weakening the stereotypes associated with them.