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<p>How do market intermediaries assist individuals in navigating exchanges? This article theorizes how intermediaries act as cultural guides in the marketplace by arbitrating between heterogeneous ideas and values and acclimating clients to different scripts of exchange. Drawing on an ethnographic study of the Japanese “marriage-hunting” industry, including 127 interviews with market professionals and their clients, participant observation in dating events, and archival research, I identify how specific varieties of mediation shape the interactions and sensemaking of clients unevenly versed in market rules. Intensive mediation <i>substitutes</i> clients’ cultural fluency, or the knowledge of and ability to enact market scripts, moderate mediation <i>enhances</i> it, while weak mediation compels individuals to <i>mobilize their own cultural fluency</i>. Although intensive mediation facilitates more efficient searches, it is less socially valorized; conversely, because weak mediation approximates the dominant ideal of a romantic relationship it is more valued. As these varied modes of cultural guidance dovetail with broader hierarchies of desirability, they produce a tiered structure within the market and encourage prolonged utilization of dating services.</p>

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Varieties of Mediation: Ideational Heterogeneity, Cultural Fluency, and Market Intermediaries in Japanese ‘Marriage Hunting'

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2025年9月6日

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  • Anna Woźny

摘要

How do market intermediaries assist individuals in navigating exchanges? This article theorizes how intermediaries act as cultural guides in the marketplace by arbitrating between heterogeneous ideas and values and acclimating clients to different scripts of exchange. Drawing on an ethnographic study of the Japanese “marriage-hunting” industry, including 127 interviews with market professionals and their clients, participant observation in dating events, and archival research, I identify how specific varieties of mediation shape the interactions and sensemaking of clients unevenly versed in market rules. Intensive mediation substitutes clients’ cultural fluency, or the knowledge of and ability to enact market scripts, moderate mediation enhances it, while weak mediation compels individuals to mobilize their own cultural fluency. Although intensive mediation facilitates more efficient searches, it is less socially valorized; conversely, because weak mediation approximates the dominant ideal of a romantic relationship it is more valued. As these varied modes of cultural guidance dovetail with broader hierarchies of desirability, they produce a tiered structure within the market and encourage prolonged utilization of dating services.