Strategies of conditional cash transfers and the tactics of resistance

TY - JOUR

T1 - Strategies of conditional cash transfers and the tactics of resistance

AU - Garmany, Jeff

PY - 2017/2/1

Y1 - 2017/2/1

N2 - This article examines how poor people negotiate obligations placed on them by social welfare initiatives. More specifically, it considers conditional cash transfer programs (CCTs), and the ways beneficiaries harness program conditionalities to make demands on authorities, in some cases even enacting subtle forms of resistance to state governance. Drawing from Michel de Certeau, it argues that while CCT conditionalities function as strategies of state development, they are not always/already under exclusive state control. Marginalized groups like CCT recipients can tactically harness these conditionalities. Through such tactics, poor people make demands on the state and deflect program obligations, but in calculated ways that avoid exposing them to greater vulnerability. Drawing from empirical data collected as part of a case study in rural northeastern Brazil, this article contributes to existent bodies of literature on CCTs, governance, and critical development studies in the 21st century.

AB - This article examines how poor people negotiate obligations placed on them by social welfare initiatives. More specifically, it considers conditional cash transfer programs (CCTs), and the ways beneficiaries harness program conditionalities to make demands on authorities, in some cases even enacting subtle forms of resistance to state governance. Drawing from Michel de Certeau, it argues that while CCT conditionalities function as strategies of state development, they are not always/already under exclusive state control. Marginalized groups like CCT recipients can tactically harness these conditionalities. Through such tactics, poor people make demands on the state and deflect program obligations, but in calculated ways that avoid exposing them to greater vulnerability. Drawing from empirical data collected as part of a case study in rural northeastern Brazil, this article contributes to existent bodies of literature on CCTs, governance, and critical development studies in the 21st century.

KW - Brazil

KW - Conditional cash transfers

KW - development

KW - rural

KW - the state

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85011617228&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1177/0308518X16672453

DO - 10.1177/0308518X16672453

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85011617228

SN - 0308-518X

VL - 49

SP - 372

EP - 388

JO - Environment and Planning A

JF - Environment and Planning A

IS - 2

ER -