Making good mothers: Conditions, coercion and local reactions in the Juntos Program in Peru

Based on two ethnographic investigations in the rural Peruvian Andes, this chapter aims to explore the implications of the conditional aspects of the cash transfer program. We will first show how “extralegal conditions” allow both the state and its employees to control the behavior of the mothers for the benefit of other programs and initiatives beyond the legal framework of the program. We will then show how women react, resisting or adopting Juntos and have come to manage its exclusionary implications at a local level.