Social programs suffered big transformations after the 70 decade, when multilateral financial organizations acquired a central influence on the design and financing of social programs. This global transformations spread through Latin American countries several focalized programs which aim was the population described as “vulnerable” and “poor”. They took into account the livelihood conditions in the present over the processes which have originated and deepened the asymmetries of power.   Also, this transnational configuration required a relevant presence of the national states, as to implement social programs was necessary to have an executive actor at national government’s scale.

In this context, we ask: which shape does it take the interdependence between the lineaments of social programs designed transnationally and the specific way they acquire in local contexts? For this project we have chosen the Argentinian case.  Particularly, we are interested in analyzing how do the logics of (de)commodification but also the ones of (de)familiarization of the welfare the states propose through its social politics, impact on the way the social inclusion is considered and put into practice. We aim to analyze both the categories the state uses to build the social problems as a public issue as well as what people “on benefit” feel and think about their situation after the implementation of a new social program, the Asignación Universal por Hijo in 2009.

This research takes part in a wider debate on the scopes of citizenship. The aim is to comprehend the ways in which inequalities linked to social programs are built, legitimate, reinforced or modified in a local experience, by taking into consideration the relationship between the state and the people who receive social programs.

Last, we seek to explore the entanglements between the transnational category of “on benefit” commonly used by assistencial politics and the local experiences and meanings about “being on benefit”.