IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ecanth/v10y2023i2p233-245.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Valuing and devaluing: Struggles over social payments, dignity, and sneakers

Author

Listed:
  • Lindsay DuBois

Abstract

This article examines the valuation struggles around Argentina's Asignación Universal por Hijo para Protección Social (AUH), a large conditional cash transfer (CCT) program introduced in 2009. Thinking about value as a verb invites us to move away from reified notions and to consider the work differently positioned social actors do to value and devalue specific ideas, practices, people, and things. The article identifies two broad perspectives on the AUH, one that frames the social payments as an entitlement based on the rights of children and the other that frames the AUH as social assistance or help. There were many reasons to believe the AUH would have broad social support, yet most people, even most beneficiaries, saw the AUH as assistance rather than a right. Two other key concepts at play are work and dignity. These diverse views intersect—surprisingly—in discussion around sneakers, a topic that every interview and commentary on the AUH seems eventually to mention. Sneakers appear as a sign of dignity or as evidence of misspent government funds. This article thus attends to how political struggles are centrally about the practices of valuing and devaluing specific kinds of people.

Suggested Citation

  • Lindsay DuBois, 2023. "Valuing and devaluing: Struggles over social payments, dignity, and sneakers," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(2), pages 233-245, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecanth:v:10:y:2023:i:2:p:233-245
    DOI: 10.1002/sea2.12282
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/sea2.12282
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/sea2.12282?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Collins, Jane L., 2017. "The Politics of Value," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226446004, September.
    2. Constanza Tabbush, 2010. "Latin American Women's Protection after Adjustment: A Feminist Critique of Conditional Cash Transfers in Chile and Argentina," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(4), pages 437-459.
    3. repec:ucp:bkecon:9780226446141 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Daniel Scott Souleles & Matthew Archer & Morten Sørensen Thaning, 2023. "Introduction to special issue: Value, values, and anthropology," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(2), pages 162-168, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Margherita Scarlato & Giorgio d'Agostino, 2019. "Cash Transfers, Labor Supply, and Gender Inequality: Evidence from South Africa," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(4), pages 159-184, October.
    2. Christina Hughes, 2019. "Reexamining the Influence of Conditional Cash Transfers on Migration From a Gendered Lens," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(5), pages 1573-1605, October.
    3. Scarlato, Margherita & D'Agostino, Giorgio, 2016. "The political economy of cash transfers: a comparative analysis of Latin American and sub-Saharan African experiences," IDOS Discussion Papers 6/2016, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).
    4. Margherita Scarlato & Giorgio d'Agostino & Francesca Capparucci, 2016. "Evaluating CCTs from a Gender Perspective: The Impact of Chile Solidario on Women's Employment Prospect," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(2), pages 177-197, March.
    5. Cecilia Alemany & Claire Slatter & Corina Rodríguez Enríquez, 2019. "Gender Blindness and the Annulment of the Development Contract," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 50(2), pages 468-483, March.
    6. Anne Jerneck, 2015. "Understanding Poverty," SAGE Open, , vol. 5(4), pages 21582440156, November.
    7. Cruz-Martinez, Gibran, 2015. "Going Beyond Aggregated Measures in the Conditional Cash Transfer Programs: The Effective Coverage of Benefits and Beneficiaries," SocArXiv qrnme, Center for Open Science.
    8. Scarlato, Margherita, 2012. "Social Enterprise, Capabilities and Development: Lessons from Ecuador," MPRA Paper 37618, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Funmi (Olufunmilola) Ojediran & Alistair Anderson, 2020. "Women’s Entrepreneurship in the Global South: Empowering and Emancipating?," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-22, November.
    10. Scribano, Adrian & De Sena, Angelica, 2017. "Social Policies And Sensitivities Management: An Approach From The Sociology Of The Body/Emotions," EUREKA: Social and Humanities, Scientific Route OÜ, issue 3, pages 26-37.
    11. Malu Villela & Sergio Bulgacov & Glenn Morgan, 2021. "B Corp Certification and Its Impact on Organizations Over Time," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 170(2), pages 343-357, May.
    12. Sarah Franzen, 2020. "The value of farming: Multifaceted wealth generation through cooperative development," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(2), pages 279-292, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ecanth:v:10:y:2023:i:2:p:233-245. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=2330-4847 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.