Social policies and plural meanings of money: The social production of cash transfers

MARTÍN HORNES

Economic Sociology Newsletter

Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies

Lugar: Colonia; Año: 2018

1871-3351

Towards the end of the decade of the nineties witnessed a remarkable transformation in the field of social policies at global level from the emergence of State interventions focused on money transfers to the poor. Known as cash transfers (CT), these policies override the traditional provision of goods and services for the delivery of cash, establishing conditions or prerequisites in terms of nutrition, health and education.Since its inception, international organizations, development agencies and expert knowledge related to social policies, holding countless discussions about definitions, characteristics and scope of the CT. Through the development of a qualitative approach, this project aims to stop at a point less warned: rebuild the social production of meanings of the money of the CT in the Republic Argentina (2008-2015). Inquire about the multiplicity of plots and senses associated with money, exploring and analyzing its social and moral meanings both circuits of the social policies of CT - paying attention to the knowledge of experts in social policy, is the local actors State involved in the implementation of policies, and monetary practices of households - as in the reconstruction of the diversity of public plural senses on the money of the CT.From a perspective that provides an articulation with institutional productions of the marking of the money and the sociology of money from domestic currencies (work pioneers like Viviana Zelizer, Jane Guyer, Ariel Wilkis, among others), this thesis is nourished different conceptual scaffolding to demonstrate findings on the sensitive dimensions of the money:to) the theory of performativity (Michael Callon and others) it allows us to approach the expertise that expert knowledge assembled to design the money of the CT,(b) references to the works of Stategraphy (Vincent Dubois) allows us to visualize conflicts and negotiations over the meanings of money transferred between State local actors involved in instances of implementation of the social policies and CT holder?s households,(c) a sociology on the moral power of money in the currency practices of households (Ariel Wilkis) exposes how the money of the CT is crossed by power relations mobilized from social constructions of gender and disputes intergenerational on the use of the money, and(d) the constructions on the numbers and public money (Federico Neiburg and Soledad Sánchez), show how a sociology of money can contribute to moral interpretations which social groups mobilized on the forms of redistribution State.Our findings contribute to the construction of a multisituate sociology of money that shows how money connecting a world of plural social relations and practices. The social production of the money of the CT is the result of an assembly of plural meanings of money, occur at different times and social spaces, and involve different patterns of actors that mobilize different knowledge and produce meanings dissimilar on the money.