Geographies of Voluntarism:
new spaces of health, welfare and governance
GHRG/PolGRG: Full day session
Convenors:
Christine Milligan, Institute of Health Research, Lancaster University,
Alexandra Square, Lancaster, LA1 4YT.
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
David Conradson, Department of Geography, University of Southampton,
Southampton, SO17 1BJ.
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Overview:
Over the last two decades, successive governments in the UK and other Western
states have sought to circumscribe the public provision of social welfare in
favour of greater welfare pluralism. This changing modus operandi has seen the
promotion of a social economy in which non-state actors are increasingly
valorised in the provision of social and welfare services (Amin et al., 1999).
Emphasis has accordingly been placed on increasing the responsibilities of
local communities to provide services appropriate to their needs.
These developments rely increasingly on voluntarism and voluntary action - a
term we use to denote those forms of collective human action, including both
mutual aid and philanthropy, that originate distinct from the spheres of the
state and market. As voluntary action develops in response to localised needs
and interests that change over space and time, however, the geographies of
voluntarism are often uneven. The unfolding landscapes of voluntarism thus
warrant consideration in terms of how and where voluntary actors are active in
the planning and provision of welfare services, and what this might mean in
terms of the delivery of local and national health and social welfare. They
also invite an examination of those new configurations of governance that may
be developing between actors from the statutory, market and voluntary sectors,
and the implications of these alliances for local democracy. The social
spaces of individual voluntary organisations are also of interest as
environments collectively fashioned by staff and volunteers with a view towards
assisting particular groups of users.
This session aims to explore the emerging geographies of voluntarism and
community action. In particular, we invite papers that address the following
sub-themes:
1. Voluntary provision of local health and social welfare
How are voluntary organisations functioning as actors in the
development of: community support, local policy, planning, provision and
delivery of health and social welfare services? How does this impact on equity
and access to health and welfare? Are there lessons to be learned from
cross-cultural considerations of voluntarism?
2. Voluntarism and new political spaces of governance
How might voluntary action be contributing to alternative spaces of
political action? Are we seeing the emergence of new hybridised spaces of
governance, and if so, how are the relationships between the state and the
voluntary sector changing within this? Is there any evidence of an emerging
'shadow state'?
3. Geographies of community development and participation
In what ways is social capital being harnessed to promote the health
and well-being of local communities? What motivates local participation and
how might this be adapted/reproduced for the empowerment of local communities?
How evenly is power and decision-making distributed amongst participants in the
alliances of social capital?
4. The production and experience of voluntary spaces
How are the institutional and organisational spaces of voluntarism
produced over time? In what ways are (say) political and spiritual values
folded into these social spaces through the recursive practices of volunteers?
To what extent is the production of particular sorts of voluntary spaces
problematised by contractual relationships with funders? And how do
users/clients experience the spaces of voluntarism in terms of their embodied
subjectivities? Do they find them broadly empowering or disempowering sites,
and why?
Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be sent by May 15th (preferably by
email) to either Christine Milligan or David Conradson at the above addresses.
Dr. Christine Milligan
Lecturer,Institute for Health Research
Lancaster University,Alexandra Square
Lancaster LA1 4YT
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