Broker bureaucracies: The subsidiary offices of the digitalizing state
Intermediaries play crucial roles in the implementation and functioning of the state in the transition towards digital governance. As a restructuring of networks, information flows, and territories – the digitalizing state implies the transition towards the digitalized interaction between the state...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Elsevier
2025-06-01
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| Series: | Digital Geography and Society |
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| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666378325000017 |
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| author | Fenna Imara Hoefsloot Neha Gupta Dennis Mbugua Muthama José de Jesús Flores Durán |
| author_facet | Fenna Imara Hoefsloot Neha Gupta Dennis Mbugua Muthama José de Jesús Flores Durán |
| author_sort | Fenna Imara Hoefsloot |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Intermediaries play crucial roles in the implementation and functioning of the state in the transition towards digital governance. As a restructuring of networks, information flows, and territories – the digitalizing state implies the transition towards the digitalized interaction between the state and its residents, signaling a potential shift in the position of intermediaries in this process. Drawing on interviews with brokers and key informants in land administration and ethnographic observations in Nairobi, Guadalajara, and Mumbai, we explore the interplay between digital technologies, paper-based systems, typists, consultants, and citizens in the digitalizing state. This urges us to consider how digitalization, in many ways, goes against the novelty and excitement ascribed to the dynamics of modernizing and digitizing state governance. Paying attention to the geographies of information flows shows how digitalization unfolds in both the offices of the state as well as in subsidiary, hybrid spaces and through acts of brokerage. We argue that the paper-filled offices of the print shops and cybercafés are the sites where a potentially different range of alternative digital futures are exposed. Outside of the tropes of control, seamless connection, or the globalizing effect of digital technologies, these spaces give insight into the deeply institutionalized cultures and ways of organizing civil and political life in which digital technologies are introduced. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-02982c46777b4c93b1efbf6607c34eee |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2666-3783 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-06-01 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Digital Geography and Society |
| spelling | doaj-art-02982c46777b4c93b1efbf6607c34eee2025-01-12T05:25:49ZengElsevierDigital Geography and Society2666-37832025-06-018100112Broker bureaucracies: The subsidiary offices of the digitalizing stateFenna Imara Hoefsloot0Neha Gupta1Dennis Mbugua Muthama2José de Jesús Flores Durán3University College London; Corresponding author at: UCL, Department of Geography, 26 Bedford way, London WC1H 0AP, UK.Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) Mumbai, School of Development Studies, VN Purav Marg, Deonar, Chembur, Mumbai, Maharashtra – 400088. IndiaBritish Institute in Eastern Africa (BIEA), Laikipia Road, Kileleshwa, Nairobi. PO Box 30710 – 00100 GPO, Nairobi, KenyaUniversidad de Guadalajara, Centro Universitario de Arte, Arquitecture y Diseño (CUAAD), Calzada Independencia Norte #5075, Huentitán El Bajo, Guadalajara, MexicoIntermediaries play crucial roles in the implementation and functioning of the state in the transition towards digital governance. As a restructuring of networks, information flows, and territories – the digitalizing state implies the transition towards the digitalized interaction between the state and its residents, signaling a potential shift in the position of intermediaries in this process. Drawing on interviews with brokers and key informants in land administration and ethnographic observations in Nairobi, Guadalajara, and Mumbai, we explore the interplay between digital technologies, paper-based systems, typists, consultants, and citizens in the digitalizing state. This urges us to consider how digitalization, in many ways, goes against the novelty and excitement ascribed to the dynamics of modernizing and digitizing state governance. Paying attention to the geographies of information flows shows how digitalization unfolds in both the offices of the state as well as in subsidiary, hybrid spaces and through acts of brokerage. We argue that the paper-filled offices of the print shops and cybercafés are the sites where a potentially different range of alternative digital futures are exposed. Outside of the tropes of control, seamless connection, or the globalizing effect of digital technologies, these spaces give insight into the deeply institutionalized cultures and ways of organizing civil and political life in which digital technologies are introduced.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666378325000017BrokersBureaucracyLand administrationComparative researchInformation infrastructuresDigitalization |
| spellingShingle | Fenna Imara Hoefsloot Neha Gupta Dennis Mbugua Muthama José de Jesús Flores Durán Broker bureaucracies: The subsidiary offices of the digitalizing state Digital Geography and Society Brokers Bureaucracy Land administration Comparative research Information infrastructures Digitalization |
| title | Broker bureaucracies: The subsidiary offices of the digitalizing state |
| title_full | Broker bureaucracies: The subsidiary offices of the digitalizing state |
| title_fullStr | Broker bureaucracies: The subsidiary offices of the digitalizing state |
| title_full_unstemmed | Broker bureaucracies: The subsidiary offices of the digitalizing state |
| title_short | Broker bureaucracies: The subsidiary offices of the digitalizing state |
| title_sort | broker bureaucracies the subsidiary offices of the digitalizing state |
| topic | Brokers Bureaucracy Land administration Comparative research Information infrastructures Digitalization |
| url | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666378325000017 |
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