Cross-cultural Brokering in the Legal, Institutional and Normative Domains: Intercultural Mediators Managing Immigration in Catalonia
| Date | 01 September 2006 |
| Published date | 01 September 2006 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0964663906066618 |
| Author | Jordi Agustí-Panareda |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
CROSS-CULTURAL BROKERING
IN THE LEGAL, INSTITUTIONAL
AND NORMATIVE DOMAINS:
INTERCULTURAL MEDIATORS
MANAGING IMMIGRATION IN
CATALONIA
JORDI AGUSTÍ-PANAREDA
Stanford Law School, USA
ABSTRACT
Intercultural mediation programs have recently been set up in Catalonia in order to
manage growing foreign immigration flows. Intercultural mediators, usually immi-
grants working for local governmental entities and NGOs and brokering in the
relationships between immigrants and their new social, cultural and legal setting,
accomplish a very wide variety of roles aimed at facilitating the social inclusion of
immigrant groups. This article, moving beyond classic approaches to immigrant
acculturation and on the basis of ethnographic fieldwork, examines the activities of
intercultural mediators as normative and institutional brokers who bridge the gaps
between newcomers and the institutions, professionals and the population at large of
the host society, in both conflictual and non-conflictual settings. The article examines
how intercultural mediators behave as interfaces or entry points to the legal, norma-
tive and institutional systems of the host society, as transmitters and enforcers of legal
and social norms, as promoters of welfare services and human rights and, more
broadly stated, as mediators between different normative, institutional and cultural
backgrounds. Its aim is to understand and make better known the work of these
emerging actors, who, facilitating the integration of the newly arrived, provide an
insightful example of cross-cultural normative brokering. The analysis of this
bridging activity, in turn, provides some insights on the nature of their immigrant
integration practices, their management of cross-cultural conflict, the impact of their
approach to the laws and norms of the host society and the questionable suitability
of the mediation label to describe their interventions.
SOCIAL &LEGAL STUDIES Copyright © 2006 SAGE Publications
London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi, www.sagepublications.com
0964 6639, Vol. 15(3), 409–433
DOI: 10.1177/0964663906066618
KEY WORDS
cross-cultural conflict management; immigrant integration; intercultural mediation;
legal, institutional and normative brokering
INTRODUCTION
THE MANAGEMENT of immigration flows and cultural differences are
often noted as two paramount challenges of our increasingly multi-
cultural societies. Knowledge and expectations about norms and
institutions are core elements of the diverse cultures that come to interact
with current migrations. Newly arrived immigrants frequently lack an
understanding of the legal culture and social norms of the host society and
its institutional system and protocols (e.g. Schuetz, 1944; Lakey, 2003).
Aggravated by their socio-economic and legal precariousness, important
sections of the immigrant population remain on the margins of the legal and
institutional systems and of the main socialization and care institutions of the
host society, thus posing further difficulties to their inclusion (e.g. Valls
Domingo et al., 1995; Calavita, 1998). This article focuses its attention on
how an emerging professional group of intercultural mediators in Catalonia
try to come to grips with these challenges. Looking at a dimension of inte-
gration processes whose importance has often been overlooked by immi-
gration research, it portrays intercultural mediators as legal, normative and
institutional brokers who bridge the gaps between immigrants and the insti-
tutions, professionals and population at large of the host society. It suggests
an approach to the study of intercultural mediation and cross-cultural
brokering that stresses the importance of normative and institutional work.
Norm transmission and integration processes are usually analyzed in the
academic literature through the framework of acculturation (e.g. Berry, 1997;
Schönpflug, 1997). Although acculturation is often conceptualized as encom-
passing changes occurring in both immigrants and the host society,1research
works tend to focus mostly on the process by which immigrants acquire the
host society’s cultural patterns and develop working relationships with their
new environment (Lakey, 2003). This one-sided approach might be deemed
adequate within a framework of assimilation2but it does not fit with the
immigration-management discourses of local governments and non-state
actors in Catalonia, which endorse an intercultural integration model based
on the respect for cultural pluralism and the promotion of cross-cultural
interaction leading to mutual adaptation (Generalitat de Catalunya, 2001;
Roque, 2003). The mediators studied in this article represent an attempt to
implement the promise of interculturality, that is, they are conceptualized, in
the theoretical texts and policy documents that led to their creation, as
promoters of intercultural interaction, working to facilitate the adjustment
of existing norms and institutional arrangements and to foster mutually
enriching integration processes. Consequently, the article does not focus only
410 SOCIAL & LEGAL STUDIES 15(3)
To continue reading
Request your trial