Ethical brokerage and self-fashioning in Italian immigration bureaucracy. (September 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Tuckett, Anna
• Is Part Of: Critique of anthropology. Volume 38:Number 3(2018:Sep.)
• Page Start: 245
• Page End: 264
• Publication Date: 2018-09
• Subjects: Brokers -- bureaucracy -- Italy -- law -- migration -- social mobility; Anthropology -- Periodicals; 301.205
• DOI: 10.1177/0308275X18775199
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0308-275X

Abstract

In increasingly bureaucratised immigration regimes, experts who can assist migrants in their navigation of immigration law are in high demand. This article examines the role of community brokers – migrants who are self-styled immigration advisers – within the Italian immigration regime. Contributing to recent anthropological work which challenges the common characterisation of brokers as immoral or amoral, I show how becoming a migration broker is rooted in ethical projects of self-betterment that enable migrants to challenge their legally and economically marginalised position in Italian society.