favor of more neutral terms such as “social payment” or “cash transfer.”
We should take such terminological shifts seriously (in state bureaucracies
no less than in the rainforest, the anthropologist should respect local
uses). For there is, in such new languages of the social, a significant kind
of minimalism. Against the rich particularity and personality of the generous
gift, Â�here we speak of simply “transferring” a sum from one account
to another; neither asymmetrical assistance nor symmetrical exchange is
implied. As in the systems of sharing discussed by Widlok, in the new
world of cash transfers “both giver and recipient de-Â�emphasize the position
of giver and receiver” (Widlok 2012, 189).
In fact, what a social “transfer” really is today seems to be up for grabs.
In some very substantial meaÂ�sure, of course, it still means “social assistance,”
with continuing connotations of charity, compassion for the
unfortunate, and so on. The new language of “transfers” Â�here competes
with a still very vital older regional language of “grants” (which, the term
implies, must be the work of a generous grantor). But there are also alternative
conceptions at play. One classical anthropological diagnostic for
distinguishing a share from a gift is that the response to a share may be
critical rather than grateful (Widlok 2012, 189) and involve practices of
complaint or derision such as “insulting the meat.” There may be something
of this in the social practices of receiving pensions and grants.
From the anecdotal material I have managed to collect, at least, it seems
that at the concrete occasions of distribution (when pensions and grants
are received from government pay points), neither expressions of gratitude
nor praise poems to the benevolent state are particularly prominent.
Instead, the complaint is that the payments are too small, the government
is stingy, there are administrative problems, the queries are too long, and
so on. The “meat” is insulted, not praised. We may detect a hint Â�here that
social payments may be being seen (at least by some) not as gifts for
which one should feel grateful but as something that one has coming—Â�
something that is delivered to you because it is your due.26
The most fully developed elaboration of the idea of social transfers as
rightful shares, however, comes from Namibia. There, the strong language
of own�ership that one sees in discussions around the nationalization
of minerals and land has also started to appear in at least some sorts
of claims for social payments. In recent years, a vigorous campaign has
been conducted for a basic income grant (big)—Â�a minimum monthly