GRANTING JUSTICE, cash, care, and the child support grant

182pp., paperback, Cape Town, 2022

"By diving deep into poor women’s lives while keeping a steady eye on feminist theories, Tessa Hochfeld guides us in the debate on the implications of child support grants for female recipients in South Africa. Inspired by the American philosopher Nancy Fraser, Tessa wonders whether cash transfers contribute to these mothers’ capacities to live the lives that they value, and make the world more just. The study is a path-breaking example of understanding the meaning of institutional failure for individual lives, in this case the lives of six women living in Johannesburg. Hochfeld concludes that the South African state, while offering cash grants for its poor children (the majority of all South African children), fails to invest systematically in poor children’s future, thereby not only limiting the impact of the grant but also continuing injustice by privatising caring responsibility onto families, in particular mothers." Trudie Knijn, Emerita Professor of Interdisciplinary Social Science, Utrecht University, The Netherlands

The late Professor Tessa Hochfeld (1972-2019) was Associate Professor at the Centre for Social Development in Africa at the University of Johannesburg.