Modes of intermediation: How intermediaries engage in advancing local bottom-up experimentation

Abstract

Intermediaries are recognized as influential actors in advancing local bottom-up experimentation and strengthening its impact on urban sustainability transitions. Recent studies have articulated intermediation by listing diverse roles and activities that intermediaries perform and by presenting theory-based typologies of different intermediaries. However, such listings and typologies fail to capture how intermediaries engage, often informally and multi-directionally, in local experimentation. To improve the conceptual clarity of intermediation in this context, we propose a framework of four intermediation modes: brokering, configuring, structural negotiating, and facilitating and capacitating. We employ these modes in two qualitative, ethnography and interview-based studies of intermediation in urban redevelopment and energy transition contexts. The studies demonstrate that intermediation requires simultaneous engagement in multiple modes owing to the intermediaries’ different competencies, remits, and resources. Therefore, the modes are highly relevant for understanding what it takes to effectively intermediate and for preparing support mechanisms for intermediation in different experimentation domains.