Street Level Brokers: Shrinking the Occupation of Despachantes in an Era of Global Managerialism

The paper focuses on the occupation of despachantes documentalistas ( document clearing agent) in São Paulo, Brazil, which was first regulated  in 1854, by the Brazilian    Emperor,  differentiating  these services from the work of customs agents, occupation  that were established by the Portuguese Crown, in 1809 . The township despachantes were in charge of collecting taxes, and forwarding legal documents for real estate, business and vehicles.  Since then, their selection and work have been under state control. In 2002, the National Council of Despachantes  Documentalistas was  organized as a collective project to  professionalization.

They used to think about themselves as supportive of the government, acting as brokers for their clients to the public officials. Nowadays, they share a negative public image associated with payment of bribes and illicit practices.  This traditional way of providing document clearing services have undergone transformation.   As a result of deregulation policies and privatization of public services , the forwarding of identification documents  are now provided by large enterprise firms that manage the Poupatempo posts  and bank agencies, which receive the payments of taxes, fines and duties.  

The impact of the global neoliberal agenda on the local occupation of despachantes  has reduced the size of the group in three times during the last twenty years.

In the new context of north – south professional relations, despachantes are being replaced by paralegals , a global occupation that has been introduced in Brazil,  providing work to a  large  group of law bachelors without the credential to practice.

The research fieldwork is based on document analysis; data collected at the Regional Council of Sao Paulo Despachantes  on their 3.429 members;  qualitative interviews with leaderships of two competitive professional associations  and a survey  with 100 despachantes in the state  of São Paulo.