Research in marginal, mobile, or politically sensitive contexts often depends on locally embedded intermediaries, yet their epistemic role remains under-theorised. Drawing on a study conducted among Fulbe (Fulani) nomadic communities in the Shai-Osudoku district of Ghana, this paper introduces the concept of Indigenous Knowledge Brokers to theorise actors who mediate the conditions of knowledge production. Although formally designated as research assistants for contractual and remuneration purposes, these locally embedded actors functioned as epistemic intermediaries who structured access to dispersed settlements, identified legitimate gatekeepers, shaped sampling pathways, interpreted culturally coded communication, and anticipated socio-political risks. Their brokerage influenced qualitative interviews, survey administration, participant selection, and the spatial distribution of data objective. Their embeddedness simultaneously granted them relational leverage. Sustaining collaboration required negotiating remuneration, accommodating competing obligations, and participating in local moral economies through social engagement beyond contractual arrangements. The paper conceptualises Indigenous Knowledge Brokers as relationally powerful epistemic infrastructure and argues that research in unfamiliar socio-spatial contexts unfolds within a negotiated brokered relational field. Recognising this dynamic enhances methodological transparency, reflexivity, and analytical rigour.
Key WordsIndigenous knowledge brokers, fieldwork, access and gatekeeping, co-production of knowledge, intermediaries, Fulbe.
1.IntroductionResearch in marginal, mobile, or politically sensitive contexts is rarely a straightforward application of research design. Rather, it unfolds through negotiated relationships, mediated access, and context-specific forms of knowledge translation. While methodological literature has long acknowledged the importance of “gaining access” and navigating gatekeepers (e.g., Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007; Burgess, 1984), such accounts often treat access as a preliminary stage of research rather than an ongoing, structuring condition of knowledge production. Similarly, reflexive traditions in qualitative research have emphasised positionality and the situated nature of knowledge (England, 1994; Rose, 1997) and yet have paid comparatively less attention to the locally embedded intermediaries who actively shape what becomes visible, sayable, and knowable within the field.
This paper addresses this gap by introducing the concept of Indigenous Knowledge Brokers to theorise actors who mediate not only access to research settings but also the epistemic conditions under which data are generated. Drawing on a study conducted among Fulbe (Fulani) nomadic communities in the Shai-Osudoku district of Ghana, the paper argues that such actors function as epistemic infrastructure, indispensable intermediaries through whom the social and spatial worlds of research are rendered legible. In doing so, the paper contributes to a growing body of scholarship that views knowledge production as co-produced and relationally situated (Jasanoff, 2004), while extending this perspective to foreground the role of intermediary actors in structuring both qualitative and quantitative data generation.
The Fulbe communities that formed the focus of this study are characterised by dispersed settlement patterns, mobility linked to pastoral livelihoods, and fluid, often informal, authority structures. These features present significant challenges for conventional research designs. Sampling frames are difficult to establish, settlement boundaries are not fixed, and leadership hierarchies are not always readily legible to outsiders. In such contexts, the research team’s ability to identify participants, navigate spatially dispersed sites, and interpret social interactions depended heavily on locally embedded actors with intimate knowledge of the terrain, kinship networks, and socio-political dynamics of the area. The analysis is developed through a community commonly treated as outside formal knowledge systems, more often researched than seen as producing knowledge about research itself. That the framework emerges from this setting is part of its importance.”
For institutional and practical reasons, these actors were formally designated as research assistants, enabling their inclusion within the project’s administrative, ethical, and remuneration frameworks. However, their actual role extended far beyond the technical or logistical functions typically associated with assistantship. They identified dispersed and sometimes hidden settlements, advised on appropriate sequences of engagement with community members, interpreted culturally coded forms of communication including silence, deflection, and indirect speech and anticipated potential tensions related to land use, inter-ethnic relations, and local authority structures. In doing so, they shaped not only how data were collected but what could be known.
This observation resonates with broader critiques of the assumption that researchers directly access “the field” as a neutral space. Instead, as feminist and post-structural scholars have argued, knowledge is always partial, situated, and mediated (Haraway, 1988). However, while such perspectives emphasise the positionality of the researcher, they often under-theorise the role of intermediary actors who enable researchers to navigate unfamiliar socio-spatial contexts. The concept of Indigenous Knowledge Brokers seeks to address this gap by drawing attention to the epistemic labour of locally embedded actors who structure the conditions of possibility for research itself.
Importantly, the influence of these actors extended beyond qualitative components of the study. In the survey phase, they played a critical role in shaping sampling pathways, determining which settlements were accessible within given timeframes, and guiding the spatial distribution of data objective. As a result, both qualitative and quantitative data were, in important respects, brokered, produced through interactions mediated by these actors’ knowledge, networks, and judgments. This challenges implicit assumptions within mixed-methods research that quantitative components are less socially mediated than qualitative ones and underscores the need to interrogate the social processes through which all forms of data are generated.
At the same time, the embeddedness of these actors within local socio-spatial networks granted them a degree of relational leverage. Their cooperation could facilitate or delay access; their judgments could prioritise certain participants over others; and their own social obligations could shape the timing and sequencing of fieldwork activities. Sustaining collaboration therefore required more than contractual remuneration. It involved ongoing negotiation of expectations, flexibility in scheduling, and participation in local relational norms, including attendance at social events such as weddings and funerals, and symbolic contributions to community life. These practices can be understood as part of the moral economy within which fieldwork relationships are embedded, highlighting the extent to which research is not merely procedural but relationally negotiated.
This dual positioning as both community insiders and formally designated members of the research team, places Indigenous Knowledge Brokers in a liminal space that is not adequately captured by existing methodological categories. While research assistants are typically conceptualised as supporting actors, and gatekeepers as points of entry, the actors described here mediated both access and interpretation in ways that shaped the epistemic architecture of the study. Although related literatures on intermediary roles, including development brokerage, have examined how local actors mediate resources and political processes, the epistemic dimensions of such mediation within research practice remain insufficiently theorised.
Recognising the role of Indigenous Knowledge Brokers also requires acknowledging the power dynamics embedded in such relationships. Dependence on particular brokers may lead to selective visibility, as access becomes filtered through specific networks. Negotiations over remuneration and expectations may introduce tensions that affect the pace and scope of fieldwork. The need to maintain relational ties may constrain the researcher’s autonomy in decision-making. These dynamics complicate idealised representations of fieldwork as a researcher-driven process and instead foreground its character as a negotiated relational field.
By conceptualising Indigenous Knowledge Brokers as relationally powerful epistemic intermediaries, this paper makes three contributions. First, it extends methodological debates by highlighting the role of intermediaries in shaping both qualitative and quantitative data production. Second, it challenges the adequacy of existing categories such as “research assistant” in capturing the epistemic labour involved in fieldwork. Third, it calls for greater reflexivity and transparency in reporting the relational and negotiated nature of research processes, particularly in contexts where researchers lack familiarity with local socio-spatial dynamics.
The remainder of the paper develops this argument in four steps. The next section reviews existing literature on access, gatekeeping, and co-production, highlighting the limited attention paid to epistemic mediation. This is followed by a conceptual elaboration of Indigenous Knowledge Brokers. The paper then draws on empirical material from the Shai-Osudoku study to illustrate how brokerage shaped both qualitative and quantitative components of the research. Finally, it discusses the methodological implications of recognising brokered fieldwork.
2.Access,Mediation, and the Co-Production of KnowledgeAccess has long been recognised as a foundational concern in qualitative research, traditionally framed as the challenge of gaining entry into a field site through gatekeepers (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007; Burgess, 1984). However, more recent scholarship has shifted away from viewing access as a one-off procedural step, instead conceptualising it as an ongoing, negotiated process shaped by relational dynamics, institutional constraints, and situational contingencies.
Recent empirical work reinforces this shift. For example, studies on field access show that researchers must continuously navigate evolving relationships, often adapting research design in response to refusals, delays, or conditional cooperation from gatekeepers. Similarly, Lainez (2024) demonstrates that securing field access frequently involves iterative “trial-and-error” processes, where strategies are revised in response to local conditions rather than pre-defined methodological plans. These insights underscore that access is not merely granted but actively produced and reproduced throughout the research process.
At the same time, contemporary work has begun to question the adequacy of the “gatekeeper” concept itself. While gatekeepers are typically understood as individuals who grant or restrict access, they represent only one node in a broader network of mediation. In many contexts, particularly those characterised by informality, mobility, or marginalisation, access is not controlled by a single authority but distributed across multiple actors who possess different forms of local knowledge and relational embeddedness. This suggests the need to move beyond gatekeeping as a singular mechanism toward a more distributed understanding of access as relationally brokered.
A growing body of recent methodological literature has begun to explicitly recognise the role of intermediaries in qualitative research. For instance, Chatterjee et al. (2025) argue that intermediaries defined broadly as actors who mediate relationships between researchers, participants, and research sites play a “strategically vital” yet underreported role in shaping access, data objective, and knowledge production. Crucially, their work highlights that intermediaries are often rendered invisible in published accounts, either because researchers seek to present their engagement with participants as direct or because intermediary involvement is treated as methodological “noise.”
This recent scholarship marks an important shift by foregrounding intermediaries as active participants in the research process rather than passive facilitators. It also challenges the assumption that intermediaries are only necessary for “outsider” researchers, demonstrating that even those with partial insider status may rely on local actors to navigate specific socio-cultural or spatial contexts. This aligns with broader arguments that insidership and outsidership are not fixed categories but exist along a continuum shaped by context and interaction.
However, despite this growing recognition, the analytical treatment of intermediaries remains limited in two key respects. First, intermediaries are often grouped into broad categories such as translators, facilitators, or field assistants without differentiating the distinct forms of labour they perform. Second, while their role in enabling access and data objective is acknowledged, their influence on the epistemic dimensions of research, what becomes visible, sayable, and interpretable remains under-theorised.
The emphasis on reflexivity and positionality has been one of the most significant developments in qualitative methodology over the past three decades. Scholars have demonstrated that knowledge is situated and shaped by the researcher’s social location, identity, and interaction with participants (Haraway, 1988; England, 1994; Rose, 1997). More recent work continues to extend this tradition by examining how positionality is negotiated in practice, particularly in cross-cultural and Global South research contexts.
Contemporary debates increasingly recognise that positionality is not solely an attribute of the researcher but is relationally constructed. For example, research on global academic mobility and knowledge production highlights how epistemic authority and legitimacy are shaped through interactions among actors situated within unequal global knowledge hierarchies. Similarly, recent cross-cultural research emphasises the importance of engaging local actors to mitigate bias and enhance contextual understanding, suggesting that knowledge production is inherently collaborative and situated within broader social relations.
Despite these advances, much of the positionality literature remains researcher-centric, focusing on how researchers negotiate insider/outsider status while underplaying the role of intermediary actors in shaping these dynamics. In practice, researchers are rarely positioned in the field independently; rather, their positionality is mediated through introductions, interpretations, and representations provided by locally embedded actors. This indicates that positionality itself may be co-produced through intermediary relationships, a dimension that remains insufficiently theorised.
The concept of co-production has become increasingly influential in methodological debates, particularly in research involving marginalised or hard-to-reach populations. Contemporary studies emphasise that knowledge is produced through collaborative processes involving researchers, participants, and other stakeholders, rather than being extracted from the field. In applied contexts such as health research, co-production is associated with improved recruitment, deeper engagement, and more contextually grounded findings.
Recent methodological discussions also highlight the importance of relational trust and sustained engagement in enabling participation, particularly among populations that may be sceptical of research or difficult to access. Flexible designs, multiple recruitment pathways, and strong interpersonal relationships are identified as key to successful data objective in such contexts. These insights reinforce the view that research is not a linear process but a relationally embedded practice.
However, while co-production frameworks emphasise collaboration between researchers and participants, they often overlook the intermediary actors who facilitate these relationships. In many fieldwork settings, particularly those involving linguistic, cultural, or spatial distance, interactions between researchers and participants are not direct but mediated. Intermediaries influence who participates, how interactions unfold, and how meanings are interpreted, thereby shaping the co-production process itself. Yet their role is rarely explicitly theorised within co-production frameworks.
The role of intermediaries has been more extensively theorised in other fields, particularly in development studies, where brokerage is understood as the mediation of resources, information, and power between external actors and local communities. Scholars such as Neubert (1996) have highlighted how local brokers translate, negotiate, and reshape development interventions within specific socio-political contexts.
While this literature provides valuable conceptual tools for understanding mediation, its focus has largely remained on political and economic processes. Brokers are typically analysed in terms of their role in facilitating access to resources, navigating institutional arrangements, or mediating power relations. The epistemic dimensions of brokerage, how intermediaries shape knowledge production have received comparatively little attention.
Recent methodological scholarship on intermediaries begins to point in this direction by acknowledging their influence on data objective and interpretation. However, a systematic conceptualisation of intermediaries as epistemic actors remains underdeveloped. This gap is particularly evident in mixed-methods research, where the social mediation of quantitative data objective is often under-recognised.
Taken together, contemporary debates on access, positionality, co-production, and intermediaries point to a shared insight: qualitative and mixed-methods research is fundamentally relational and socially mediated. However, these literatures stop short of fully theorising the role of locally embedded actors who operate at the intersection of these processes.
Gatekeeping literature has long emphasised access, yet it tends to treat it as a moment of entry rather than an ongoing process of mediation. Similarly, debates on positionality foreground the researcher’s role in shaping knowledge while paying comparatively less attention to intermediary actors through whom such positioning is often enacted. Co-production frameworks highlight collaboration but frequently assume relatively direct interaction between researchers and participants, while brokerage literature has largely focused on the mediation of resources and power rather than knowledge itself. As a result, insufficient attention has been given to actors who structure access across dispersed and fluid socio-spatial settings, mediate researcher positionality within local contexts, shape interactional dynamics between researchers and participants, and influence both qualitative and quantitative data generation. This paper addresses this gap by conceptualising such actors as Indigenous Knowledge Brokers, foregrounding their role as epistemic intermediaries and advancing methodological debates beyond existing categories toward a more nuanced understanding of how knowledge is produced in relationally complex field settings.
3.Conceptualising Indigenous Knowledge Brokers as Epistemic InfrastructureRecent methodological scholarship has begun to move beyond viewing fieldwork as a direct interaction between researchers and participants, instead recognising the role of intermediaries in shaping research processes. Emerging studies highlight how locally embedded actors variously described as facilitators, translators, or field assistants play critical roles in enabling access, recruitment, and data objective, particularly in contexts characterised by linguistic, cultural, or socio-political distance (e.g., Chatterjee et al., 2025). However, despite this growing recognition, intermediaries are still predominantly conceptualised in operational terms, with their contribution framed as logistical support rather than as analytically significant to knowledge production.
This paper advances this discussion by reconceptualising such actors as epistemic agents. Rather than treating intermediaries as facilitating pre-defined research processes, it argues that they actively structure the conditions under which knowledge is produced. This shift aligns with broader theoretical perspectives that view knowledge as socially mediated and relationally constructed (Jasanoff, 2004; Haraway, 1988) but extends them by foregrounding the role of specific actors who mediate between researchers and the field. In doing so, it introduces the concept of Indigenous Knowledge Brokers as a means of capturing the epistemic dimensions of intermediary labour in fieldwork.
Indigenous Knowledge Brokers are locally embedded actors who, while formally designated as research assistants for institutional and remuneration purposes, function epistemically as intermediaries who structure access, interpret socio-spatial hierarchies, and mediate the conditions under which knowledge is produced. Their brokerage lies not merely in facilitating research activities but in shaping what becomes visible, who is reachable, and how social realities are interpreted within the research process.
This definition builds on, but extends, existing conceptualisations of intermediary roles. While studies of research assistants and translators have acknowledged their importance in cross-cultural research (Temple & Young, 2004), they often remain framed as conduits through which information passes. More recent work has challenged this view, demonstrating that translation and mediation are interpretive acts that influence meaning rather than simply transmitting it (Chatterjee et al., 2025). The concept of Indigenous Knowledge Brokers develops this insight further by situating such interpretive labour within a broader framework of epistemic mediation.
At the same time, the definition recognises the institutional realities of research practice. As others have noted, research infrastructures rely on formalised roles and contractual arrangements that enable the organisation and funding of fieldwork. The designation of these actors as “research assistants” reflects such institutional requirements. However, this category is analytically insufficient, as it obscures the extent to which these actors shape research design and knowledge production in practice.
To establish analytical clarity, Indigenous Knowledge Brokers must be distinguished from related categories that have been discussed in methodological and interdisciplinary literatures. First, while research assistants have traditionally been understood as performing technical and logistical tasks, recent scholarship has begun to acknowledge their more active role in shaping research processes. Nevertheless, the term continues to carry connotations of support rather than structuring influence. Indigenous Knowledge Brokers differ in that their contribution is not limited to implementing research design but extends to shaping its execution and outcomes.
Second, the concept of gatekeepers, widely used in qualitative research, refers to actors who grant or restrict access to research settings (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007). While Indigenous Knowledge Brokers may facilitate access, their role is not confined to initial entry. Instead, they are involved in the ongoing navigation of the field, influencing who is engaged, how relationships are managed, and how data are interpreted.
Third, the literature on brokerage in development studies, including the work of Neubert (1996), conceptualises brokers as mediators of resources, information, and power between external actors and local communities. While this provides a useful starting point, it primarily addresses political and economic processes. Indigenous Knowledge Brokers extend this notion into the epistemic domain, focusing on how intermediaries shape knowledge production rather than resource distribution.
Finally, while community leaders may act as points of authority or legitimacy, Indigenous Knowledge Brokers are not necessarily formal leaders. Their influence derives from relational embeddedness, socio-spatial knowledge, and their capacity to navigate networks rather than from formal positions of power. This distinction is particularly important in contexts where authority structures are fluid or informal.
The role of Indigenous Knowledge Brokers can be understood through multiple, interrelated dimensions, each of which reflects broader insights from contemporary methodological debates. Indigenous Knowledge Brokers enable navigation across dispersed or mobile research settings, shaping the spatial reach of the study. This resonates with emerging work on the spatiality of fieldwork, which emphasises that research sites are not fixed but constructed through movement and access (Lainez, 2024). Indigenous Knowledge Brokers interpret local social hierarchies and relational networks, identifying appropriate interlocutors and guiding engagement strategies. This aligns with studies of relational access, which highlight how participation is structured through social networks rather than individual decisions. Indigenous Knowledge Brokers translate not only language but meaning, interpreting culturally specific forms of communication. This builds on literature that frames translation as an interpretive act (Temple & Young, 2004), extending it to encompass broader processes of meaning-making. Indigenous Knowledge Brokers anticipate potential tensions and advise on how to navigate them, reflecting recent work on the ethics and politics of fieldwork in sensitive contexts, where researchers must continuously assess and manage risk. Indigenous Knowledge Brokers influence how key categories within the research are defined and operationalised. This dimension draws on constructivist perspectives that view social categories as contingent and negotiated, highlighting the role of intermediaries in shaping these definitions. Together, these dimensions demonstrate that Indigenous Knowledge Brokers are not peripheral to research but central to its epistemic organisation.
A defining feature of Indigenous Knowledge Brokers is their dual positionality, occupying a space between the research team and the community. This position can be understood in relation to broader discussions of liminality and boundary-spanning roles, where actors operate across social domains and mediate between different systems of knowledge and authority. Recent research on intermediaries has highlighted how such actors navigate multiple allegiances and expectations, often balancing institutional requirements with local norms. This dual positioning enables access and interpretation but also introduces tensions, as intermediaries must reconcile potentially conflicting demands. In the context of fieldwork, this liminality is particularly significant. Indigenous Knowledge Brokers are embedded enough within local networks to command trust yet sufficiently aligned with the research team to facilitate formal data objective. Their position is therefore both enabling and precarious, requiring ongoing negotiation.
While much methodological literature emphasises collaboration and trust, recent work has increasingly drawn attention to the power dynamics embedded in research relationships. Intermediaries are not neutral actors; their involvement shapes the distribution of power within the research process. Indigenous Knowledge Brokers possess relational leverage derived from their control over access, interpretation, and navigation. This aligns with broader arguments that power in fieldwork is relational and situational rather than fixed. Their cooperation is essential, but not guaranteed, making research dependent on ongoing negotiation.
Sustaining collaboration often requires engagement with what can be understood as the moral economy of fieldwork, a set of expectations and obligations that extend beyond formal contracts. Participation in social events, symbolic contributions, and flexibility in scheduling are not peripheral but integral to maintaining relationships. This aligns with broader scholarship on reciprocity, which conceptualises social interaction as structured by mutual obligations and expectations of return rather than discrete transactions (Suter & Ramsøy, 2024). In this sense, fieldwork relationships are embedded within relational systems where cooperation is sustained through ongoing exchange rather than formal agreement. Similar dynamics have been observed in recent studies of fieldwork in marginalised settings, where trust is built through sustained social engagement rather than formal agreements alone.
At the same time, these dynamics introduce risks. Dependence on particular intermediaries may lead to selective visibility or bias, as access is filtered through specific networks. Negotiations over remuneration and expectations may create tensions that affect research processes. Recognising these dynamics is essential for developing a more realistic and reflexive understanding of fieldwork.
The concept of Indigenous Knowledge Brokers ultimately points to a broader rethinking of fieldwork as an infrastructural process. Just as infrastructure enables the movement of people, goods, and information, Indigenous Knowledge Brokers enable the production and circulation of knowledge within research contexts.
Recent scholarship has begun to apply infrastructural thinking to knowledge production, emphasising the material and relational systems that underpin research (Star & Ruhleder, 1996; Larkin, 2013; Jasanoff, 2004). Extending this perspective, Indigenous Knowledge Brokers can be understood as epistemic infrastructure, actors whose labour is foundational to the production of knowledge yet often rendered invisible or taken for granted in methodological accounts (Bowker & Star, 1999; Chatterjee et al., 2025). Recognising Indigenous Knowledge Brokers as epistemic infrastructure has several implications. It challenges the adequacy of existing categories such as “research assistant,” highlights the brokered nature of data production, and calls for greater transparency in reporting intermediary roles. It also underscores the need to view fieldwork not as a linear process but as a relationally negotiated system shaped by multiple actors.
4. Empirical Illustration: Brokered Fieldwork in Shai-OsudokuThe empirical illustration is based on fieldwork for a study on informal learning and inter-generational cultural transmission within nomadic Fulbe communities in Ghana. Fieldwork in the Shai-Osudoku district did not begin with entry into a clearly bounded site but with the problem of how such a site could be located and accessed. Although selected for its Fulbe population, neither official records nor prior institutional knowledge provided reliable information on settlement locations or social organisation. As widely noted, access in such contexts is rarely achieved through formal channels but must be assembled through relational networks (Feldman et al., 2003; Lainez, 2024).
As the research team had little familiarity with the social and spatial context of the study, access emerged through a chain of connections linking the research team to a locally embedded academic and political figure, then to a local Counsellor and teacher, and ultimately to Mr. A, who became central to the research process.
He was formally recruited as a research assistant to facilitate community entry and identify local assistants. However, this designation quickly proved insufficient. A key indicator of his centrality was his decision to resign from his job to commit fully to the project, reflecting both the perceived opportunity and the relational significance of the role.
His responsibilities rapidly expanded. He led initial field visits, guided the research team through engagement protocols, and facilitated interactions with community gatekeepers reinforcing the idea that access is sustained through ongoing relational work rather than a single-entry point (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007). He also handled logistical arrangements, including accommodation and training venues, illustrating that brokerage operates across both epistemic and material dimensions.
Mr. A further recruited five additional Fulbe research assistants through his networks. This process shaped not only team composition but the conditions of data objective, demonstrating how intermediaries influence the research apparatus itself.
Overall, access was not secured through a single gatekeeper but assembled through layered relationships. Mr. A’s role highlights the inadequacy of the “research assistant” category, as his contribution extended to structuring the pathways through which the research became possible. He did not simply facilitate access; he constituted it. In this sense, access was not merely brokered, it was produced through brokerage.
Constructing the Field: Spatial and Social Brokerage in PracticeIf access had to be assembled relationally, a more fundamental challenge followed: determining what and where the field actually was. While the Fulbe presence in the Shai-Osudoku district was generally known, the spatial distribution of settlements, their boundaries, and internal organisation were largely indeterminate. No reliable maps existed, and these settlements were not consistently recognised in formal administrative structures. The field, therefore, could not be approached as a pre-defined geographic entity but had to be constructed through situated knowledge.
This process was enabled by Indigenous Knowledge Brokers, particularly Mr. A, whose familiarity with the district allowed the research team to move from abstract assumptions of “Fulbe presence” to a concrete mapping of settlements. Drawing on his networks and experience in cattle trading, he identified multiple Fulbe communities, many absent from official records. Reaching them often required navigating unmarked routes and negotiating access through host communities, highlighting the limits of formal spatial representations.
This supports the argument that research sites in contexts of mobility and informality are not pre-existing units but are produced through practices of access, movement, and interpretation (Lainez, 2024). What counted as a “field site” emerged through the broker’s ability to render spaces visible and reachable, making the study’s spatial boundaries contingent rather than fixed.
Practically, this became evident when the research team divided the district into three operational zones for data objective. Mr. A led one zone, while others were assigned to local assistants. However, spatial knowledge proved uneven. In one area, a research assistant, Ms. B, demonstrated greater familiarity with the terrain than Mr. A, enabling access to settlements that might otherwise have been overlooked.
Ms. B’s role highlights that brokerage is multiple and context-specific rather than singular. While Mr. A’s networks were extensive, they were not exhaustive. Instead, the field was constructed through overlapping but partial brokerages tied to specific geographies. This aligns with literature conceptualising access as distributed across multiple actors rather than controlled by a single gatekeeper (Chatterjee et al., 2025).
Spatial brokerage was closely linked to social brokerage. Identifying settlements was insufficient without engaging appropriate interlocutors. In the absence of formal leadership structures, determining authority required local interpretation. Brokers played a decisive role in this process. Mr. A facilitated introductions to chiefs and influential actors, enabling access to key participants by framing the research in ways that aligned with local expectations.
These interactions reinforce the view that legitimacy is relationally constructed and must be continuously negotiated (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007). However, this case extends that insight by showing that such negotiation is ongoing and mediated through actors who interpret social hierarchies and guide engagement.
Importantly, spatial and social brokerage were not neutral. The identification of settlements, zoning decisions, and selection of interlocutors shaped the research sample. Communities more accessible through broker networks became central, while others were potentially excluded. Similarly, access to prominent individuals may have privileged certain perspectives. These dynamics raise questions of selective visibility, where brokered access shapes whose voices are included (Chatterjee et al., 2025). The research team’s reliance on brokers was thus both enabling and constraining, making the study possible while structuring its scope. Overall, the field in this study was not pre-existing but a brokered construct, produced through spatial and social mediation. Indigenous Knowledge Brokers shaped not only movement across space but the very boundaries of the research, determining which locations, actors, and interactions became part of the study. The field, therefore, is best understood as an outcome of epistemic brokerage rather than its starting point.
If Sections 4.1 and 4.2 show how access is assembled and the field constructed, the organisation of data objective reveals how Indigenous Knowledge Brokers shape the internal architecture of research practice; who collects data, how instruments are deployed, and how plans are adapted in situ. In line with co-production perspectives (Jasanoff, 2004) and recent work on intermediaries (Chatterjee et al., 2025), these processes were not merely logistical but constitutive of the data produced. From the outset, data objective required the use of Fulfulde, the language of the Fulbe, due to language barrier. Initial efforts to recruit Fulfulde-speaking assistants from various universities yielded only seven. Mr. A subsequently mobilised five additional assistants through his networks. This recruitment did more than fill gaps; it configured the epistemic apparatus of the study. This selection was filtered through Mr. A’s networks, shaping linguistic competence, cultural familiarity, and social reach. As literature on field teams suggests, the composition of data collectors influences access, rapport, and interpretation (Temple & Young, 2004; Chatterjee et al., 2025). Mr. A also coordinated training, ensured attendance, and arranged accommodation. While seemingly administrative, these actions stabilised the research apparatus, enabling the transition from design to field implementation. Training itself was mediated: questionnaire items and interview prompts were interpreted and adapted in response to culturally specific meanings, reflecting that instruments are enacted through situated interpretation rather than applied neutrally (Jasanoff, 2004). An instructive episode involved the inclusion of a research assistant initially excluded during recruitment due to an oversight. Despite resistance from the research team, Mr. A incorporated this assistant into his team during fieldwork without prior approval. She later proved competent and was retained. This demonstrates how brokers can exercise discretionary authority that reshapes research design, while also revealing limitations in formal selection processes.
Data objective schedules were similarly brokered. Activities were aligned with local rhythms; daily routines, religious practices, market days, livestock movements, and environmental conditions leading to adjustments in timing and sequencing. This supports the view that research timelines in such contexts are negotiated rather than fixed (Mason et al., 2025). Methodologically, when data are collected becomes as significant as where and from whom. In practice, enumerators relied on broker guidance to identify respondents. This challenges assumptions that survey data are less socially mediated than qualitative data, showing instead that both are shaped by relational processes, including trust and access pathways (Mason et al., 2025). During interviews, brokers translated not only language but meaning. Indirect responses, silences, and culturally coded expressions required interpretation. Brokers guided probing and reframing, reinforcing that translation is an interpretive act (Temple & Young, 2004). Data therefore emerged through co-production among researchers, participants, and brokers.
The relational dynamics between the research team and Indigenous Knowledge Brokers were most evident in moments where expectations, authority, and control had to be negotiated. One such instance arose around the remuneration of research assistants. Although compensation had been predetermined by the research team, this arrangement was quickly contested. Acting as a collective, Mr. A mobilised the assistants to demand higher daily rates, transforming a fixed contractual agreement into a negotiated outcome shaped by relational leverage. This illustrates how intermediaries can reconfigure the economic terms of fieldwork, reinforcing that power in research settings is relational and emergent rather than unilaterally exercised by researchers (Feldman et al., 2003). Beyond such negotiations, the relationship extended into social domains outside formal project structures. Sustaining collaboration required engagement with local expectations. The research team attended Mr. A’s wedding and made a financial contribution, while data objective was suspended following the death of his brother to allow participation in mourning. These actions were not dictated by protocol but by relational obligation, reinforcing trust in ways formal arrangements could not. These episodes illustrate the moral economy of fieldwork, a system of expectations and reciprocal practices through which research relationships are sustained. As recent scholarship suggests, trust and legitimacy are often built through ongoing social engagement rather than formal agreements (Mason et al., 2025; Suter & Ramsøy, 2024). Here, participation in social events was integral to maintaining access. At the same time, these obligations were not entirely voluntary. Failure to engage could weaken relationships and jeopardise access, making the moral economy both enabling and constraining. Overall, these dynamics show that Indigenous Knowledge Brokers do not simply facilitate research but actively shape its conditions through relational power. Their influence spans economic, operational, and social domains, requiring continuous negotiation. Fieldwork thus emerges not as the execution of a fixed design but as an ongoing process within a relationally structured environment.
Limits of Brokerage: Refusal, Opacity, and Epistemic BoundariesIf earlier sections highlight the centrality of Indigenous Knowledge Brokers in enabling access and structuring data objective, a critical question remains: what happens when brokerage fails? This subsection examines a case in which even a highly embedded intermediary was unable to secure participation, revealing the limits of epistemic mediation. The episode emerged during an attempt to interview out-of-school Fulbe girls in a particular settlement. The research team, accompanied by Mr. A, followed established protocols for community entry. They first obtained permission from the village chief and were then directed to seek approval from the Magajia, the head woman responsible for women’s affairs. These steps reflect the layered authority structures described in gatekeeping literature (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007), and from a procedural standpoint, all conditions for access appeared satisfied. However, when engagement began, the girls refused to participate. Their refusal was expressed not through confrontation but through non-engagement; declining to respond, avoiding interaction, and withdrawing from the interview setting. This refusal persisted despite multiple attempts at mediation. Mr. A used his relational networks to encourage participation, and even the girls’ mothers intervened, but without success. The research team pursued follow-up visits, yet the outcome remained unchanged. This episode is analytically significant in several respects. First, it demonstrates that brokerage has limits. While Indigenous Knowledge Brokers facilitate access, they cannot compel participation where social, moral, or personal risks are perceived. This aligns with emerging work on refusal, which frames non-participation as a meaningful form of agency rather than a logistical obstacle. Second, it highlights epistemic opacity, situations in which knowledge remains deliberately inaccessible. The persistence of silence, even under layered mediation, suggests that participation carried risks related to reputation, gender norms, or external scrutiny. In such contexts, refusal operates as a protective practice rather than passive absence. Third, the case reveals gendered epistemic boundaries. While Mr. A’s brokerage enabled access to male leaders and broader community structures, it proved insufficient in facilitating engagement with young women. This reflects wider findings that access is uneven across gendered lines, shaped by norms regulating who can speak and under what conditions. Importantly, the episode also challenges the assumption that procedural ethics such as obtaining permission from formal authorities guarantee meaningful participation. While the research team successfully navigated gatekeeping structures, this did not translate into individual-level access, reinforcing that access is a multi-layered and contingent process. From a conceptual standpoint, this case provides a necessary counterpoint to viewing Indigenous Knowledge Brokers as epistemic infrastructure. While brokers enable research, they do not determine its full scope. Their mediation operates within broader social structures that can resist or limit inquiry. At the same time, this failure is analytically productive. It reveals the boundaries of what can be known and underscores the importance of treating silence and refusal as part of the data rather than as gaps to be overcome (Müller, Tavares & Simão, 2024). Overall, this case highlights a critical point: Indigenous Knowledge Brokers enable access, but they do not guarantee it. Their role is best understood as mediating the conditions of possibility for knowledge production, not determining its outcomes.
Multiplicity and Uneven Brokerage: The Case of Ms. BWhile earlier sections emphasise Mr. A as a dominant Indigenous Knowledge Broker, fieldwork also revealed multiple, unevenly positioned brokers whose capacities and influence varied across context. The case of Ms. B is particularly instructive. Ms. B emerged as a locally embedded actor with strong familiarity with a specific part of the Shai-Osudoku district. As the daughter of a Fulbe chief, she possessed detailed, place-specific knowledge of settlements within her area, exceeding Mr. A’s coverage in that locality. This made her essential for accessing communities less visible within his network. This illustrates that brokerage is spatially situated rather than uniform. No single intermediary possessed comprehensive knowledge of the field; access instead depended on overlapping but partial networks. This aligns with scholarship conceptualising access as distributed across actors rather than controlled by a single gatekeeper (Chatterjee et al., 2025). However, Ms. B’s role also revealed the contested and non-ideal nature of brokerage. During training, she and a colleague rejected accommodation arrangements, demanded more expensive alternatives, and left sessions early to attend a funeral, incurring financial penalties for the research team. These incidents highlight that brokerage involves negotiation and divergence of expectations within a broader moral economy. Tensions became more pronounced during data objective. Quality checks identified inconsistencies in their submissions, including rapid survey completion and lower outputs. When queried, Ms. B attributed this to an unreported eye injury sustained during fieldwork. The research team subsequently excluded her and her colleague from the second phase of data objective. This contrasts with Mr. A’s case, where similar deviations could not justify exclusion due to his centrality to access. This difference highlights a key feature of Indigenous Knowledge Brokerage: power is uneven and relationally contingent. While some brokers are indispensable, others remain replaceable. The ability to exclude Ms. B, but not Mr. A, reflects differences in embeddedness, network reach, and the degree of dependence the research placed on them. At the same time, Ms. B’s case underscores the risks of brokerage. Her local knowledge enabled access, yet her actions introduced challenges in coordination, cost, and data reliability. This duality reinforces that brokers are neither neutral nor uniformly beneficial but situated intermediaries whose contributions and constraints must be actively managed. Taken together, the cases of Mr. A and Ms. B demonstrate that Indigenous Knowledge Brokerage is heterogeneous and context-dependent. Brokers differ in spatial reach, relational leverage, and alignment with research objectives. Recognising this variability is essential for avoiding overly generalised accounts and for developing a more nuanced understanding of fieldwork practice.
5. Methodological Implications and ContributionThe analysis shows that fieldwork in marginal and complex contexts is not simply the implementation of research design but the negotiation of access, meaning, and relationships through locally embedded actors. By conceptualising these actors as Indigenous Knowledge Brokers, this paper advances a methodological intervention for qualitative and mixed-methods research. A first implication concerns access. While often treated as a preliminary stage, the findings show that access is ongoing and distributed across multiple intermediaries. The cases of Mr. A and Ms. B demonstrate that access is assembled through overlapping, spatially differentiated networks rather than controlled by a single actor. This underscores the need to conceptualise access as a dynamic and relational process, rather than a one-time achievement. A second implication concerns data. Building on co-production frameworks, the study shows that data are brokered rather than directly generated through researcher–participant interaction. The involvement of multiple brokers introduces variation: data are shaped by which broker is involved, where objective occurs, and how interactions are interpreted. This suggests that data production is both triadic and heterogeneous, requiring qualitative and quantitative data to be understood as products of situated, broker-specific mediation. A third implication relates to research roles. The designation of intermediaries as “research assistants” obscures the extent and variability of their epistemic contribution. The contrast between Mr. A and Ms. B shows that epistemic labour is unevenly distributed, varying in reach, influence, and indispensability. This calls for more nuanced reporting that captures not only the presence of intermediaries but their relative positioning within the research process. A fourth implication concerns power. Indigenous Knowledge Brokers possess relational leverage that shapes research direction and outcomes, but this power is uneven. Mr. A’s centrality made exclusion impractical, whereas Ms. B’s more limited role allowed for her removal. This reveals a hierarchy of brokerage, structured by embeddedness and dependency. At the same time, the refusal of some participants demonstrates that brokerage has limits, and that knowledge production remains contingent on both broker capacity and participant agency. A final implication concerns methodological transparency. The role of intermediaries is often underreported or simplified. This paper argues that methodological accounts should explicitly recognise multiplicity, uneven influence, and hierarchical relations among brokers, as well as their role in shaping different aspects of the data. Such transparency enables a more accurate and reflexive understanding of how knowledge is produced.
6.ConclusionThis paper has argued that qualitative and mixed-methods research in marginal, mobile, and socio-spatially complex contexts is fundamentally shaped by the work of locally embedded intermediaries. By introducing the concept of Indigenous Knowledge Brokers, it has sought to move beyond conventional categories such as “research assistant” or “gatekeeper” to foreground the epistemic role of actors who mediate access, interpretation, and the production of data. Drawing on empirical material from fieldwork in the Shai-Osudoku District, the paper has demonstrated that research does not simply unfold within a pre-existing field but is actively constructed through processes of brokerage. Indigenous Knowledge Brokers shaped the spatial boundaries of the study, structured sampling pathways, mediated interactions, and influenced both qualitative and quantitative data generation. At the same time, their embeddedness within local networks granted them relational leverage, requiring ongoing negotiation and engagement within what was conceptualised as the moral economy of fieldwork. Importantly, the paper has also highlighted the limits of brokerage. The refusal of certain participants to engage, despite extensive mediation, underscores that knowledge production is not fully controllable and that silence and non-participation constitute meaningful forms of social action. These limits reinforce the need for methodological approaches that are attentive not only to what is made visible through research but also to what remains inaccessible. The concept of Indigenous Knowledge Brokers as epistemic infrastructure offers a way of capturing these dynamics. It emphasises that research is not solely the product of methodological design or researcher skill but is co-produced through relational systems that enable, constrain, and shape the conditions of knowledge. Recognising this has important implications for methodological transparency, reflexivity, and the ethical conduct of research. While developed from a specific empirical context, the framework proposed here has broader relevance for studies conducted in settings where access is mediated through locally embedded actors. Future research could further explore how such brokerage operates across different contexts, particularly in relation to gender, power, and the politics of knowledge production. By making visible the often-hidden labour of intermediaries, this paper contributes to a more grounded and realistic understanding of how fieldwork is actually done.
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