‘Seen’, ‘Respected’ and ‘Empowered’: Exploring the Dignity Dividend of a Universal Basic Income

Abstract

Individuals experiencing poverty face dual indignity: material deprivation and engagement with stigmatizing social policy. Universal Basic Income (UBI) is often pitched as a dignifying alternative to both challenges. This article presents a 2-year ethnographic investigation within a UBI pilot in South Indian urban slums. I explore the dignifying potential of ‘UBI way’—unconditionality, universality, individualization, regularity—of delivering cash. Participants report enhanced recognition, strengthened social relations and increased agency through the intervention’s design features. Importantly, the narratives accompanying the delivery of a UBI were key to these experiences of dignity. This study also presents a novel conceptual framework to operationalize dignity, based on recognition, relationality and autonomy, aiming to make dignity a ‘useful’ concept in development policy and practice.