Vally, Natasha Thandiwe. 2016. “Insecurity in South African Social Security: An Examination of Social Grant Deductions, Cancellations, and Waiting.” Journal of Southern African Studies 42 (5): 965–82.
Abstract: "In 2012, the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) contracted a private company, Cash Paymaster Services (CPS), to design a standardised national social assistance payment and registration system. The national card-based biometric enrolment and payment system was advanced as a way to make social grant payment more secure – for claimants, the state, and the national fiscus. In practice, however, it translated into forms of insecurity, which served to promote and reproduce precarity. This article considers some of these insecurities, with a focus on the three most pervasive: the cancellation of grants, the expansive, unauthorised monetary deductions from claimants’ accounts, and the new kinds of waiting that the system introduced."
Natasha Vally, "Vally, Natasha Thandiwe. 2016. “Insecurity in South African Social Security: An Examination of Social Grant Deductions, Cancellations, and Waiting.” Journal of Southern African Studies 42 (5): 965–82.", contributed by Angela Okune, STS Infrastructures, Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography, last modified 19 July 2018, accessed 21 December 2024. https://stsinfrastructures.org/content/vally-natasha-thandiwe-2016-“insecurity-south-african-social-security-examination-social
Critical Commentary
Abstract: "In 2012, the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) contracted a private company, Cash Paymaster Services (CPS), to design a standardised national social assistance payment and registration system. The national card-based biometric enrolment and payment system was advanced as a way to make social grant payment more secure – for claimants, the state, and the national fiscus. In practice, however, it translated into forms of insecurity, which served to promote and reproduce precarity. This article considers some of these insecurities, with a focus on the three most pervasive: the cancellation of grants, the expansive, unauthorised monetary deductions from claimants’ accounts, and the new kinds of waiting that the system introduced."