ABSTRACT

This afterword looks beyond conditional cash transfers toward alternative distributive political programs that may offer more transformative possibilities for rural Latin American families. Framing the argument in terms offered by critical feminist theorist Nancy Fraser, and critically engaging with recent scholarship on unconditional cash transfers by anthropologist James Ferguson, the author argues for the continued relevance of redistributive land reform projects in Latin America. To highlight the stakes, especially as they are understood by potential beneficiaries of various (re)distributive programs, the author draws attention to conditions of defeasibility that differentiate the various goods that circulate through different distributive programs. This expression highlights conditions and circumstances under which improvements in social wellbeing, which have been won by the redistribution of different goods, can be defeated and undone. This conceptual distinction is motivated on the basis of long-term ethnographic research with members of squatter communities in southern Bahia, Brazil, who are acutely aware of the temporal durability and defeasibility of the goods that make a difference in their lives. The chapter concludes by considering the relevance of the bureaucratic infrastructures established by cash transfer programs for supporting rural communities in the face of ongoing climate transformations.