Ethical brokerage and self-fashioning in Italian immigration bureaucracy

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.