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University of California Press
Open Access

Unjust Conditions

Women's Work and the Hidden Cost of Cash Transfer Programs

by Tara Patricia Cookson (Author)
Price: $12.99 / £10.99
Publication Date: May 2018
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 212
ISBN: 9780520969520
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Illustrations: 18 color photos, 2 maps

About the Book

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more.

Unjust Conditions follows the lives and labors of poor mothers in rural Peru, richly documenting the ordeals they face to participate in mainstream poverty alleviation programs. Championed by behavioral economists and the World Bank, conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs are praised as efficient mechanisms for changing poor people's behavior. While rooted in good intentions and dripping with the rhetoric of social inclusion, CCT programs' successes ring hollow, based solely on metrics for children’s attendance at school and health appointments. Looking beyond these statistics reveals a host of hidden costs for the mothers who meet the conditions. With a poignant voice and keen focus on ethnographic research, Tara Patricia Cookson turns the reader’s gaze to women’s care work in landscapes of grossly inadequate state investment, cleverly drawing out the tensions between social inclusion and conditionality.

About the Author

Tara Patricia Cookson is a SSHRC Research Fellow at the University of British Columbia and the founder of Ladysmith, a women’s equality venture. Her research on gender, international development, and social justice has been published in a variety of public and policy outlets as well as in academic journals such as Antipode

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
Map of Peru

1 Introduction: Making Aid Conditional
2 Setting the Conditions
3 The Ironic Conditions of Clinics and Schools
4 Rural Women Walking and Waiting
5 Paid and Unpaid Labor on the Frontline State
6 Shadow Conditions and the Immeasurable Burden of Improvement
7 Conclusion: Toward a Caring Society

Notes
References
Index

Reviews

"[Cookson] is able to present her informants in a perceptive and nuanced way which shows careful reflection of wider debates around ‘development’ and representation . . . this is a ‘must read’ for all those with an interest in the gendered and racialised nature of poverty."
Gender & Development
"A nuanced analysis of a widely implemented and evaluated approach to poverty reduction . . . Unjust Conditions is a must-read for those interested in the political-economic drivers of poverty, as well as researchers, students and practitioners of development, gender and labour, and governance and social policy who wish to understand CCT from a critical perspective."
Anthropologica
"Anyone interested in women’s care work, critical development studies, institutional ethnography, and/or the rural Peruvian Andes will want to read this text. Cookson’s ethnography is extensive, historical, and dynamic. She has rendered her time spent in Peru in vivid geographic detail."
Gender, Place & Culture
"Cookson poignantly unpacks the underpinnings of [conditional cash transfer programs] within mainstream economic theory in terms of rational decision making and cost –benefit analysis."
Politics & Gender
"[T]he unsettling evidence presented in Unjust Conditions provides a compelling reason for exploring these 'hidden costs' across the many other contexts in which [CCT] programs are implemented."
American Journal of Sociology
"This is an outstanding book—a stunning indictment of expert schemes that overlook lived realities in order to conjure the appearance of success. Questioning the assumption that poor mothers need the 'nudge' of incentives to care properly for their children, it exposes conditionality's perverse effects. Lucid, incisive, and compelling—bravo!"—Tania Murray Li, Professor of Anthropology, University of Toronto

"Among the many qualitative studies of the advantages and disadvantages of conditional cash transfer programs, Tara Patricia Cookson´s Unjust Conditions stands out as a genuine, major contribution addressing important blind spots frequently neglected in this debate. A must-read for scholars, activists and policymakers committed to combating poverty and gender asymmetries."— Lena Lavinas, Professor of Welfare Economics at the Institute of Economics, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

"Tara Patricia Cookson’s ethnographic research gives voice to the women who are intended beneficiaries living with the unjust 'shadow conditions' imposed by conditional cash transfers. This book poses compelling questions about identity, power, wealth, and justice and challenges us to take the 'time to listen… and identify … possibilities for meaningful change.'"—Martha Choe, former Chief Adminstrative Officer, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

"Conditional cash transfers have been evaluated by sophisticated statistical methods that ignore moral issues. This book adds to the critique of conditionality and those overhyped evaluative methods. It also adds to the demand that the standard concept of work be radically changed so that care work is given its proper recognition."—Guy Standing, author of The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class

“In this much-needed ethnography of the impact that conditionality has on the recipients of cash transfers, Cookson shows the importance of looking beyond the statistics of short-term poverty reduction to shed light on the hidden and unintended effects of conditional cash transfers on people’s lives and how these undermine long-term social change.”—Jelke Boesten, author of Intersecting Inequalities: Women and Social Policy in Peru and Sexual Violence in War and Peace: Gender and Post-conflict Justice in Peru 

"Cookson’s book critiques conditional cash transfers through the tripartite lens of care, power, and geography to reveal the hidden costs of these policies in the enforcement of ‘shadow conditions’ implicit in compliance. Unjust Conditions reveals how CCTs consolidate a post-welfare world in which a redistributive politics of unconditional cash transfers is silenced as a viable alternative in global development debates."—Victoria Lawson, Professor of Geography, University of Washington 

"By focusing on poor mothers’ unpaid care work, this compelling institutional ethnography reveals the 'coercive power of incentives' undergirding human development policy. The Peruvian state burdens its most marginalized citizens with responsibilities without providing necessary resources. Delving below rosy outcome data through a blend of theory and thick description, Cookson convincingly demonstrates how the globally popular conditional cash transfer policy relies upon, rather than challenges, deep-seated relations of power"—Elisabeth Jay Friedman, Professor of Politics and Latin American Studies, University of San Francisco

“Cookson’s book brings us to the heart of the workings of contemporary social assistance. Through fine ethnographic observation, she explores the perverse effects of conditional cash transfer program conditionalities on poor women, such as greater burden of unpaid work, gender and racial discrimination, and 'shadow conditions' imposed by civil servants. This major contribution reveals how inequality is reproduced through the web of social relations these programs create.”—Stéphanie Rousseau, Professor at the Department of Social Sciences, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú

 
"Cookson’s book, with its focus on Peru’s anti-poverty program Juntos is a most welcome contribution to our understanding of the social relations involved in cash transfer programs. A product of ethnographic fieldwork in the Andean region of Peru, it casts important light on how the Juntos program works on the ground and shows what onerous demands its conditionalities can place on both beneficiaries and poorly paid social workers, and what class and ethnic tensions and assumptions about women are called into play by these interventions. This book has some important lessons for policymakers and scholars alike and joins the ongoing debates over how to improve the design and implementation of these programs."—Maxine Molyneux,  author of The Social and Political Potential of Cash Transfers


"Unjust Conditions is a book written for exactly these times, as we collectively demand an end to violence against women in all its forms. Situated at the intersections of feminism, aid, human rights, Tara PatriciaCookson takes us on a journey to find out the truth about conditional aid. She introduces us to women who shine a light on outdated aid policies and debunks gendered myths underpinning aid conditionality."—Jane Barry, activist and author of What's the Point of Revolution if We Can't Dance? and Rising up in Response: Women's Rights Activism in Conflict


"With her extensive ethnographic research, laced with feminist theory, Tara Cookson takes a hard look at the Peruvian CCT program, Juntos, from the perspective of the low-income women it targets. Unjust Conditions offers a groundbreaking account of why the conditionalities aimed at changing women’s behavior are not only onerous, but also misplaced and unjust, when what needs addressing are the constraints within which women care for their families. If there was a need for demonstrating the value of ‘slow research’ for clear policy thinking and informed practice, Cookson provides a powerful and compelling proof."—Shahra Razavi, Chief of Research and Data at UN Women

Awards

  • AAG Globe Book Award 2018 2019, American Association of Geographers
  • GDS Development Studies Book Award Honorable Mention 2020 2020, International Studies Association
  • Sarah A. Whaley Prize 2019, National Women's Studies Association
  • Sarah A. Whaley Prize 2019 2019, National Women's Studies Association