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Capitalizing on Desire: Reconfiguring ‘the Social’ and the Government of Poverty in the Philippines
Author(s) -
Seki Koki
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
development and change
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.267
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1467-7660
pISSN - 0012-155X
DOI - 10.1111/dech.12200
Subject(s) - poverty , government (linguistics) , neoliberalism (international relations) , population , economic growth , political economy , development economics , social exclusion , globalization , sociology , investment (military) , culture of poverty , political science , economics , basic needs , market economy , law , politics , linguistics , philosophy , demography
Tracing the contours of ‘the social’ is of critical importance today, since there is a widely shared understanding that ‘the social’ has been undergoing a fundamental mutation under the encroaching influence of globalization and neoliberalism. This mutation means that a population and its risks are increasingly administered and managed through the nurturing of free subjects, productive citizens and active communities. By focusing on conditional cash transfers as a poverty‐alleviation programme in the Philippines, this study examines how the contemporary government of poverty attempts to realize social inclusion through the nurturing of desires, habits and dispositions that are conducive to an ‘investment in human capital’. The study argues that such regimes produce various forms of exclusion and counterclaims by the beneficiaries, and that these counterclaims, which reflect the popular notions of patronage and clientelism, have serious implications for envisioning the alternative configuration of ‘the social’.