‘It Never Rains but It Pours’: Social Policies between the Lack and the ‘Not Enough’

Abstract

The first two decades of the 21st century can be characterized by increased poverty, the massiveness of social programs (De Sena, 2011), the different forms of digitization of life and the centrality of consumption (Scribano, 2015). To this is added, in 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic which left consequences of a different order (social, health, economic) among the increase in global poverty stands out.Social policies, as interventions located in space-time and a particular accumulation regime, are State mediations that seek to influence the conditions of production and reproduction of ways of living in society. They are elaborated from positions and views on the world and establish meanings and feelings. Throughout the last decades, they have been modifying their objectives, target population, forms of provision, as well as their justifications and operations, where the incentive to consumption or its increase acquires importance.In this paper, based on quantitative research carried out in the municipality of La Matanza (Greater Buenos Aires), we will analyze, first of all, the meaning given -by its recipients- to the Cash Transfers Programs of Pre and pandemic context, as well as emotions about consumption after receiving those interventions. This will make it possible to characterize the economic situation of the recipients and the emotions that are organised in the face of the pandemic scenario and the restructuring of their consumption practices.To carry out this analysis, the exhibition strategy consists first of all of conceptually introducing social policies and the forms that they have assumed before and during the pandemic; Secondly, a sociodemographic and labour description of the subjects who perceive this type of interventions in La Matanza, analyzing quantitative data (through a survey) produced as part of a larger investigation carried out in 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. Thirdly, the emotions inscribed in the consumption practices of these recipients of social programs are described and problematized from the notions of need and insufficiency. Finally, some closing reflections are developed, highlighting an experience of consumption from different faults and “it is not enough”, as a way of being part of a public policy of attention to poverty and/or unemployment.