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P40


Financializing social protection in the Global South 
Convenors:
Jingyu Mao (Bielefeld University)
Minh Nguyen (Bielefeld University)
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Chair:
Minh Nguyen (Bielefeld University)
Discussants:
Sohini Kar (London School of Economics)
Horacio Ortiz (CNRS)
Format:
Panel
Location:
B202
Sessions:
Friday 14 April, -, -
Time zone: Europe/London

Short Abstract:

Finance is increasingly intruding into the realm of social protection in the Global South. This panel scrutinizes this fraught marriage between profit-making and the protection of people against the failings of the market, and its broader implications for ordinary people and societies.

Long Abstract:

Across the Global South, social protection, in the form of social cash transfers or universal health or pension insurance, has been on the rise. This development has been celebrated as an antidote to the increasing precaritization of labor, mass unemployment and privatization of public goods. Some even see it as an indication of a countermovement of social protection in the Polanyian sense, whereby socially embedding forces are at work to reverse the negative impacts of marketization and privatization. Concurrently, others have noted a parallel development, namely the increasing intrusion of finance into the realm of social protection and the everyday lives of ordinary people in the global South. As states have shifted to cash transfers and insurance mechanisms as means of social protection, financial systems and institutions have thrived on these schemes being offered to the poor and working people.

This panel further scrutinizes the relationship between finance and social protection, broadly understood as all formal and informal social arrangements aimed at guarding ordinary people against market-induced risks and vulnerabilities. We explore the following questions: how is finance changing the ways in which Global South people and societies seek to ensure social protection for current and future generations? What institutional, political economic and social mechanisms and actors are implicated in the relationship between finance and social protection? And finally, how can we conceptually understand this potentially fraught marriage between profit-making and the protection of ordinary people against the failings of the market in ensuring a broad base of well-being?

Accepted papers:

Session 1 Friday 14 April, 2023, -
Session 2 Friday 14 April, 2023, -