["Global Networks, Volume 26, Issue 4, October 2026. ", "\nABSTRACT\nThis paper contextualises migration brokerage within specific social and institutional settings and shifts our attention to aspects that enable or constrain brokerage practices in the contemporary migration landscape. Focussing on the relational and institutional fabric underlying brokerage, this paper sheds light on the unique positionality of brokers, constructed vis‐à‐vis their interactions with the state and its regulatory framework on the one hand, and with the socially distant dyad, that is, the migrant worker and employer, which is essential to necessitating brokerage in the first place. Using qualitative research conducted in the Nepal–Malaysia migration corridor, the study reveals that the socio‐structural location of brokers, in relation to the state, migrants and employers, embeds brokerage practices, generating both opportunities and vulnerabilities for migrant workers. To illustrate this, I introduce the case of ‘run‐away’ migrants in the chosen corridor and compare two vignettes to analyse the responses of migration brokers to the act of migrants running away from their place of work. This analysis shows how brokerage as a practice is a product of an underlying social and institutional space, wherein framing networks of gain, trust and control are critical in conceptualising brokerage and its outcomes.\n"]