What Comes After the Social? Historicizing the Future of Social Assistance and Identity Registration in Africa
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23211641 |
|---|---|
| Authors | James Ferguson (0000-0002-3736-0603, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Publication date | 2012-10-11 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | CHAPTER |
| Venue | Registration And Recognition Documenting The Person In World History (SOURCE_BOOK) |
| Publisher | British Academy (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.5871/bacad/9780197265314.003.0020 |
| OpenAlex | W2506065947 |
| ISBN | 9780197265314 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
Key contemporary mechanisms of distribution are routed through the ‘social assistance’ programmes provided by states. While we still often think of such programmes on the model of the well-known ‘welfare states’ of the global North, new forms of state and international transfers to the poor (in Africa and elsewhere in the global South) suggest a need to rethink the question of social assistance from a less Eurocentric perspective. With a special focus on southern Africa, this chapter reviews the meaning of ‘social assistance’ in a region where the domain of ‘the social’ was never securely established in the first place. It reflects on the possibility that new rationalities and techniques of social assistance may be calling into question the assumed dependence of social service provision on traditional forms of population registration and documentation.
Documentation · Epistemology · Identity (music) · Meaning (existential) · Political science · Politics · Population · Social Welfare · Sociology · Welfare state · Law · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare · Social Policy and Reform Studies
| Citations per year | 0.38 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2013 - 2025 (13) |
| Highly cited | No |