Paper short abstract:

Looking at the case of a village in rural Malawi, I argue that chieftaincy can play an important role in ensuring that people in Southern Africa are not socially or economically cast off, even as the region's economy threatens to leave them in a state of abjection.

Paper long abstract:

Currently there appears little prospect that the Southern African economy will be able provide enough jobs to adequately support the region's population in the future. As a result there has been growing interest in alternative ways in which the distribution of resources may be justified in the region, beyond claims based on labour and production. James Ferguson has called for scholars to keep their 'ears to the ground' to listen to the way people in Southern Africa make alternative claims. This article attempts to meet this call using an ethnographic case study of an agricultural extension programme in a rural Malawian village. Officially the Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP) targets Malawian farmers who are unable to produce crops. In the village though the distribution was based on a very different logic; it marked the relations of dependence that existed between villagers and their chief. I show that while the chief ended up with more inputs than most of his villagers, the programme made it possible for villagers to press claims with him, limiting the extent to which they could be excluded. I subsequently argue that, while they are no longer valued within the market economy, chieftaincy can play an important role in ensuring that people in Malawi and Southern Africa more broadly are not cast off completely.