It has been argued that migrations should be understood not as the result of the individual actions of migrants who cross borders but as composites of actions carried out by constellations of social actors and institutions in the “middle ground” between borders (Xiang and Lindquist 2014, Xiang 2012). For studies on language and migration, this means examining how language is articulated in this “middle ground” and is deeply entangled in the infrastructure that intensively mediates mobility (Del Percio 2016, Xiang and Lindquist 2014) and produces unequally mobile subjects. To understand the role of language in the “middle ground” between borders, this panel focuses on the multiple social actors and institutions that broker mobility across borders. As key gatekeepers of value and meaning and as intermediate nodal points between global or national linguistic hierarchies and local linguistic markets (Lorente 2017), brokers are at the center of new regimes of mobility. They maintain and negotiate simultaneous relationships with various social actors and institutions and in so doing, form an integral part of the complex structures that govern migration (Xiang 2012). Drawing from ethnographic research among migrant healthcare workers and -interpreters, university students, refugee migrants as well as among brokers themselves, the contributions in this panel provide evidence of the ways language becomes a key tool in the subjectification and disciplining of mobile people and as such constitutes a central aspect of brokering work. Within this context, the contributions to this panel will highlight how language as ideology, technology or practice is embedded in the institutional practices and mediation processes of brokers.
Del Percio, A. (2016). The governmentality of migration: intercultural communication and the politics of (dis)placement in Southern Europe. Language and Communication, 51, 87 – 98.
Lorente, B. P. (2017). Scripts of servitude: language, labor migration and transnational domestic work. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Xiang, B. (2012). Predatory princes and princely peddlers: the state and international labour migration intermediaries in China. Pacific Affairs, 85 (1), 47–68.
Xiang, B. & Lindquist, J. (2014) Migration infrastructure. International Migration Review, 48 (1), 122–148.
