RELATIONS THAT MAKE THE AUH WORK: UNDERSTANDING ARGENTINA'S CONDITIONAL CASH TRANSFER PROGRAM

Abstract

This thesis explores how Argentina’s Conditional Cash Transfer policy, the Asignación Universal por Hijo (AUH) or the Universal Child Allowance operates in conjunction with established day-to-day relationships. When state support is important, but at the same time not enough, how does the policy become a part of people’s lives? The types of relationships I pay close attention to are those involved in the domestic, household, familial, and land-based realm. I argue that people depend on prior and existing relationships to make the policy work in the ways that it does. The ways people make the policy work are heavily tied to the policy’s focus on children. These actions are contextualized by broader processes of marginalization which limit the extent that AUH recipients can better their own lives and the lives of those close to them. I make this subtle argument through the small details I exemplify in each chapter.