Paper short abstract:

This paper argues that CCTs -targeted to women and given to beneficiaries that are considered poor- work as a special kind of money. Based on ethnographic data and interviews, it draws a series of social implications that stem from the target, manner, periodicity, and amount of the subsidies given.

Paper long abstract:

While women are not necessarily the main objective of CCTs, these programs tend to target women within households as the cash recipients. This has brought about criticisms on account of the treatment of women as instruments rather than subjects of policy(i.e. Molyneux, 2009), as well as the signalling of problematic trade-offs between program objectives and the extra-burden CCTs place on already time-poor women. The issue of female empowerment, thus, has become an important subject of contention within discussions of CCT impacts. Usually approached through household surveys and focus groups, results so far are not very conclusive and require a deeper understanding of how these transfers affect the different power relations that shape these women's choices.

Based on ethnographic data and extensive interviews in the Montes de María region in Colombia, this paper addresses some of the main problems identified by CCT beneficiary mothers: the long payment queues, dealing with commercial establishments, humiliation and stigmatization. A key aspect of the displacements, points of tension and contradictions emerging from the intersection of CCTs and existing communities seems to be the substance of cash subsidies as such: money. Following the money thread, I 1) argue why is it that this money is so important for the beneficiaries, and 2) propose to conceptualize CCTs as special moneys -this money is socially marked in ways that affect its users and influence the way it is circulated and spent.