This article compares two East African unconditional cash transfer (UCT) programs and how they have been interpreted by their target populations. While the US-American NGO GiveDirectly focuses on poor households in Western Kenya in an allegedly unbureaucratic and digital way, the Tanzania Social Action Fund (TASAF) distributes cash transfers in a bureaucratic and analogue manner in Tanzania. While the narrative of “free money” instilled fears about occult actors and skepticism toward political hierarchies in some recipients, others considered UCTs as offering an opportunity to enlarge their individual freedom. We argue that this radical difference with regard to how our interlocutors interpreted UCTs was catalyzed by the portrayal of “free money” as a context-independent carrier and store of value or, in other words, by UCT's socially produced “indeterminacy.”

中文翻译：

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自由货币的意识形态本质：东非无条件现金转移的比较分析

本文比较了东非的两个无条件现金转移 (UCT) 计划以及目标人群如何解读这些计划。美国非政府组织 GiveDirectly 以据称非官僚和数字化的方式关注肯尼亚西部的贫困家庭，而坦桑尼亚社会行动基金 (TASAF) 在坦桑尼亚则以官僚和类似的方式分配现金转移。虽然“免费金钱”的说法让一些接受者对神秘行为者产生了恐惧，并对政治等级制度产生了怀疑，但其他人则认为 UCT 提供了扩大个人自由的机会。我们认为，我们的对话者如何解释 UCT 的这种根本差异是由将“自由货币”描述为独立于环境的载体和价值储存手段所催化的，换句话说，是由 UCT 的社会产生的“不确定性”所催化的。