Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-dfsvx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T05:11:29.541Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Social Security, Personhood, and the State

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2015

Keebet VON BENDA-BECKMANN
Keebet VON BENDA-BECKMANN*
Affiliation:
Professor Emeritus, Martin Luther University Halle/Wittenberg, and Associate, Department of Law and Anthropology, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle, Germany
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper looks at the relationship between personhood and the state by taking a relational perspective both on the concept of personhood and on that of the state, and with a focus on social security. It presents a broad concept of social security. Based on research in the Moluccas of East Indonesia, and among Moluccan migrants in the Netherlands, it is explained how social security shapes personhood in situations in which the state is only a minor contributor, and people depend on mechanisms other than support and care from the state. Finally, it will be explored how long-distance relations of social security are maintained and how the position that respective actors have within these relationships affects notions not only of appropriate care, but also of personhood.

Keywords

migrationsocial securitycarelegal pluralismpersonhoodMoluccans
Type
State and Personhood in Southeast Asia
Information
Asian Journal of Law and Society , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , November 2015 , pp. 323 - 338
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press and KoGuan Law School, Shanghai Jiao Tong University 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Keebet von Benda-Beckmann is professor emeritus at Martin Luther University Halle/Wittenberg and an associate of the Department of Law and Anthropology at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany. She has done field research in West Sumatra and the Moluccas, and in the Netherlands, and has published widely on legal pluralism, exploring its temporal and spatial dimensions. Her publications address issues of dispute management, property, social (in)security, law and religion, natural resource management, and decentralization in Indonesia. Her most recent publication, which she wrote together with F. von Benda-Beckmann, is Political and Legal Transformations of an Indonesian Polity (Cambridge University Press, 2013). Correspondence to Keebet von Benda-Beckmann, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, PO Box 110351, 06017 Halle/Saale, Germany, E-mail address: kbenda@eth.mpg.de.

References

Anders, Gerhard (2010) In the Shadow of Good Governance: an Ethnography of Civil Service Reform in Africa, Leiden and Boston: Brill.Google Scholar
Bartels, Dieter (1989) Moluccans in Exile: A Struggle for Ethnic Survival: Socialization, Identity Formation, and Emancipation among an East-Indonesian Minority in the Netherlands, Leiden: Centrum voor Onderzoek naar Maatschappelijke Tegenstellingen.Google Scholar
Bartels, Dieter (2003) “Your God Is no Longer Mine: Moslem–Christian Fratricide in the Central Moluccas (Indonesia) after a Half-Millennium of Tolerant Co-Existence and Ethnic Unity,” in S. Pannell, ed., Proceedings of the 5th Maluku Conference, Darwin, Australia, July 1999, Darwin: NTU Press, 128–53.Google Scholar
Baumann, Holger (2008) “Reconsidering Relational Autonomy: Personal Autonomy for Socially Embedded and Temporally Extended Selves.” 30 Analyse & Kritik 445–468.Google Scholar
Benda-Beckmann, Keebet von (2015) “Social Security in Transnational Legal Space: Limitations and Opportunities,” in S. Köngeter & W. Smith, eds., Transnational Agency and Migration: Actors, Movements and Social Support, London: Routledge, 246–261.Google Scholar
Benda-Beckmann, Franz von & von Benda-Beckmann, Keebet (1994) “Coping with Insecurity: An ‘Underall’ Perspective on Social Security in the Third World,” in F. von Benda-Beckmann, K. von Benda-Beckmann & H. Marks, eds., Special Issue Focaal 22/23, Nijmegen: Focaal, 7–31.Google Scholar
Benda-Beckmann, Franz von & von Benda-Beckmann, Keebet (1998) “Where Structures Merge: State and Off-State Involvement in Rural Social Security on Ambon, Eastern Indonesia,” in S. Pannell & F. von Benda-Beckmann, eds., Old World Places, New World Problems: Exploring Resource Management Issues in Eastern Indonesia, Canberra, The Australian National University, Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies: CRES Publications, 143–180. Reprinted in F. von Benda-Beckmann & K. von Benda-Beckmann (2007) Social Security between Past and Future: Ambonese Networks of Care and Support, Münster: LIT Verlag, 205–34.Google Scholar
Benda-Beckmann, Franz von & von Benda-Beckmann, Keebet (2007) Social Security between Past and Future: Ambonese Networks of Care and Support, Münster: LIT Verlag.Google Scholar
Benda-Beckmann, Keebet von & Leatemia-Tomatala, Francy (1992) De Emancipatie van Molukse Vrouwen in Nederland, Utrecht: Jan van Arkel.Google Scholar
Fajans, Jane (2006) “Autonomy and Relatedness: Emotions and the Tension between Individuality and Sociality.” 26 Critique of Anthropology 103–119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gbgindonesia.com (2013) “An Overview of Indonesia’s Health Insurance Sector,” online <http://www.gbgindonesia.com/en/finance/article/2012/an_overview_of_indonesia_s_health_insurance_sector.php#stq=fraud%20rate&stp=1> (last accessed 23 February 2015).+(last+accessed+23+February+2015).>Google Scholar
Hoang, Lan Anh (2014) “Care, Motherhood and Femininity: Vietnamese Women in Taiwan and Moral Dilemmas of Transnational Migration,” presented at the workshop Beyond the Global Care Chain: Boundaries, Institutions and Ethics of Care, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale, Germany, 10–12 July 2014.Google Scholar
Hochchild, Arlie R (2000) “Global Care Chains and Emotional Surplus Value,” in W. Hutton & A. Giddens, eds., On the Edge: Living with Global Capitalism, London: Jonathan Cape, 130–146.Google Scholar
Jong, Willemijn de, Roth, ClaudiaBadini-Kinda, Fatoumata & Bhagyanath, Seema, eds. (2005) Ageing in Insecurity: Vieillir dans l’insécurité: Case Studies on Social Security and Gender in India and Burkina Faso, Münster: Lit Verlag.Google Scholar
Mesa-Lago, Carmelo (1978) Social Security in Latin America: Pressure Groups, Stratification and Inequality, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Mesa-Lago, Carmelo (1991) “Social Security in Latin America and the Caribbean: A Comparative Assessment,” in E. Ahmad, J. Drèze, J. Hills & A. Sen, eds., Social Security in Developing Countries, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 356–394.Google Scholar
Midgley, James (1984) Social Security, Inequality, and the Third World, Chichester, New York, Brisbane, Toronto, Singapore: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Nedelsky, Jeniffer (2011) Law’s Relations: A Relational Theory of Self, Autonomy, and Law, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nguyen, Minh T.N. (2014) Migrant Households and Care Institutions in the Red River Delta of Vietnam: Moral Authority and Commodification of Entitlements, Working Paper 153, Halle/Saale, Germany: Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology.Google Scholar
Pashigian, Melissa J (2014) “Residual Effects of Assisted Reproductive Technologies: Surrogacy, Care and Shifting Subjectivities in Southeast Asia,” presented at the workshop Beyond the Global Care Chain: Boundaries, Institutions and Ethics of Care, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale, Germany, 10–12 July 2014.Google Scholar
Read, Rosie, & Thelen, Tathjana (2007) “Social Security and Care after Socialism: Reconfigurations of Public and Private,” in R. Read & T. Thelen, eds., Social Security and Care after Socialism, Special Section Focaal 50(20), Nijmegen: Focaal, 3–18.Google Scholar
Risseeuw, Carla & Ganesh, Kamala, eds. (1998) Negotiation and Social Space: A Gendered Analysis of Changing Kin and Security Networks in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, Walnut Creek, London, New Delhi: Altamira Press, Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Risseeuw, Carla, Palriwala, Rajni & Ganesh, Kamala (2005) Care, Culture and Citizenship. Revisiting the Politics of the Dutch Welfare State, Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis.Google Scholar
Rohregger, Barbara A. (2006) Shifting Boundaries: Social Security in the Urban Fringe of Lilongwe City, Malawi, Aachen: Shaker Verlag.Google Scholar
Strijbosch, Fons (1985) “The Concept of Pèla and Its Social Significance in the Community of Moluccan Immigrants in the Netherlands.” 23 Journal of Legal Pluralism 177–208.Google Scholar
Strijbosch, Fons (1988) “Informal Social Security among Moluccan Immigrants in the Netherlands,” in F. von Benda-Beckmann, K. von Benda-Beckmann, E. Casiño, F. Hirtz & H. Zacher, eds., Between Kinship and the State: Social Security and Law in Developing Countries, Dordrecht: Foris, 169–185.Google Scholar
Thelen, Tatjana (2014) “Revisiting Care in Anthropological Theory: Creating, Maintaining and Dissolving Significant Relations,” presented at the workshop Beyond the Global Care Chain: Boundaries, Institutions and Ethics of Care, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale, Germany, 10–12 July 2014.Google Scholar
Thelen, Tatjana, Thiemann, André& Roth, Duška (2014a) “State Kinning and Kinning the State in Serbian Elder Care Programs.” 58 Social Analysis 107–123.Google Scholar
Thelen, Tatjana, Vetters, Larissa & von Benda-Beckmann, Keebet (2014b) “Introduction to Stategraphy: Toward a Relational Anthropology of the State.” 58 Social Analysis 1–19.Google Scholar
Townsend, Peter (2007) The Right to Social Security and National Development: Lessons from OECD Experiences for Low-Income Countries, Geneva: International Labour Organisation.Google Scholar
Walsum, Sarah van (2008) The Family and the Nation: Dutch Family Migration Policies in the Context of Changing Family Norms, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar
Widjaja, Muliadi & Simanjuntak, Robert A. (2010) “Social Protection in Indonesia: How Far Have We Reached?,” in M.G. Asher, S. Oum & F. Parulian, eds., Social Protection in East Asia—Current State and Challenges ERIA Research Project Report 2009–9, Jakarta: ERA, 157–181.Google Scholar
Worldbank.org (2014) “World Development Indicators: Poverty Rates at International Poverty Lines,” online <http://wdi.worldbank.org/table/2.7> (last accessed 24 September 2014).+(last+accessed+24+September+2014).>Google Scholar