The Key to Success? Social Network Brokerage in Buddy Programmes for Newly Arrived Migrants in the Flemish Region of Belgium

This qualitative study investigates how social network brokerage takes place in buddy programmes for newly arrived migrants from the perspectives of local volunteers and coordinators. There is research showing a positive effect of brokerage on social capital, but the literature on migrant mentoring shows that the objective of social networking is not always achieved. In this study, we aim to provide a more fine-grained picture of how buddy programmes contribute to the social networks of newcomers by adopting a multi-stakeholder perspective. We examine (a) the experiences of volunteers who take on the role of buddy to support the newcomer and (b) the modus operandi of coordinators responsible for monitoring the buddy programme. This will give us more insight into how they fulfil their brokerage role and which conditions of success there are for brokerage in buddy programmes for newcomers. We do this on the basis of interview data within a case study of buddy programmes in the Flemish region of Belgium. We find wide variety in brokerage behaviour of buddies (conduit, tertius gaudens, and tertius iungens). Our findings suggest that buddies can act as gatekeepers, where newcomers are deliberately kept separate from the host society. This exposes the limitation of working with volunteers to achieve network expansion. The paper concludes that integration policies take too little account of the agency of those involved, impacting brokerage behaviour. With this, we contribute to the literature on befriending programmes for newcomers within the context of migrant integration policy.