Working for Inclusion? Conditional Cash Transfers, Rural Women, and the Reproduction of Inequality Tara Patricia Cookson Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK; tpcookson@gmail.com Abstract: Throughout the global South, conditional cash transfer programmes (CCTs) are used to promote socially inclusive development. CCTs are widely evaluated for their capacity to build children’s human capital. In contrast, this paper aims to hold “social in- clusion” to account by elucidating the impacts of Peru’s CCT “Juntos” on the poor, rural mothers who are expected to meet programme conditions. Grounded in extensive ethno- graphic research in households, clinics, schools, and village halls, the paper interrogates the work of social inclusion in spaces where uneven development manifests itself in priva- tion. Considered in light of critical feminist theories of performativity and social reproduc- tion, the findings shed light on a far less optimistic reality for the work of social inclusion. This paper contributes a rich empirical account to critical literature on cash transfers and the discourses that drive them, and suggests that the circumstances under which women are required to fulfil programme conditions challenge the substance of contemporary “in- clusive” development. Keywords: inclusion, development, women, social reproduction, cash transfers Introduction This paper provides a critical view of social inclusion through the case of Peru’s conditional cash transfer (CCT) programme “Juntos”. Taking a methodologically and theoretically feminist approach, the paper elucidates the impacts of Juntos on the poor, rural mothers who receive the transfers and are expected to meet programme conditions. In addition to furthering understandings of development as a gendered process, the paper centres the mundane experiences of development’s subjects, contributing rich ethnographic data to scholarship on contemporary “inclusive” development. “Inclusivity” is an aspiration of a miscellany of contemporary development initiatives. Take for example the post-2015 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which prompt states’ action towards inclusive education, inclusive economic growth, inclusive industrialization, inclusive human settlements, and inclusive justice systems. Social inclusion in particular has gained traction at the intersection of international development and national social policy. The World Bank proclaims that as “the foundation for shared prosperity”, social inclusion “matters” (Bordia Das 2013). However, in practice, the “social” in inclusion is often rendered economic (Levitas 1996), as evidenced in policies that promote inclusion through access to bank cards, savings accounts and credit (Best 2013; Meltzer 2013; Schwittay 2011). While a definition of inclusion may seem apposite to this discussion, it is important Antipode Vol. 00 No. 0 2016 ISSN 0066-4812, pp 1–19 doi: 10.1111/anti.12256 © 2016 The Author. Antipode © 2016 Antipode Foundation Ltd.