Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of tables, figures and boxes
- List of abbreviations
- Notes on the authors
- Acknowledgements
- one Fixing Britain's ‘broken’ society: from the Third Way to Big Society
- two Theoretical underpinnings of voluntary work and voluntary organisations: work, care or enterprise?
- three Understanding the journeys of individual volunteers: demanding community concern, or demonstrating job readiness?
- four A professional paradox? ‘Managing’ volunteers in voluntary and community sector organisations
- five Voluntary and community sector organisations as enterprising care providers: keeping organisational values distinctive
- six Volunteering: an articulation of caring communities
- seven Volunteering: caring for people like me
- eight The big issue of the Big Society: mobilising communities alongside fiscal austerity
- Bibliography
- Index
seven - Volunteering: caring for people like me
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 September 2022
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of tables, figures and boxes
- List of abbreviations
- Notes on the authors
- Acknowledgements
- one Fixing Britain's ‘broken’ society: from the Third Way to Big Society
- two Theoretical underpinnings of voluntary work and voluntary organisations: work, care or enterprise?
- three Understanding the journeys of individual volunteers: demanding community concern, or demonstrating job readiness?
- four A professional paradox? ‘Managing’ volunteers in voluntary and community sector organisations
- five Voluntary and community sector organisations as enterprising care providers: keeping organisational values distinctive
- six Volunteering: an articulation of caring communities
- seven Volunteering: caring for people like me
- eight The big issue of the Big Society: mobilising communities alongside fiscal austerity
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
One of the most important tasks for twenty-first century Britain is to unlock the talents and potential of all its citizens. Everybody has a valuable contribution to make, throughout their lives. Unless we encourage older people to remain actively engaged in socially valued activity, whether paid or unpaid, everybody in Britain will miss out on the benefits of their experience and social commitment. (Tony Blair, cited in Cabinet Office, 2000, p 3)
[O]lder volunteers are more likely to be involved in groups connected with religion, with hobbies and with the elderly, and less likely to be involved in those connected with children's education, youth activities and sport. (Davis Smith, 2000, p 92)
Introduction
In Chapter Six, we began looking at volunteering in communities and noted that ‘community’ can have meanings beyond designating individuals who share a particularly geographical space. In his seminal work Bowling Alone, Putnam (2000) highlights how a wide range of communities – the Brightville community (of Chapter Six) being one, but also the Scout community, the iPhone community, the Christian Aid community, the Peterborough United football supporting community and so on – give their members a sense of belonging. These communities are embedded to a greater or lesser extent in some geographic locality, but all share in common a sense of shared experience, shared norms and shared values among their members. Members of such communities may become active within them, give time and effort to support them, just as members of a village, town or suburban community may also do. Community can play a crucial symbolic role in generating people's sense of belonging (Crow and Allan, 1994, p 6); which resonates with Putnam's notion of social capital.
In order to understand these communities that coalesced around interest, we first go back to the work of Hillery, who in 1955 reviewed 94 different definitions of the term ‘community’. In reviewing this, Hillery argued that they could be divided into two main groups: those that saw community as being largely a territorial term and those that saw community as being based on social network relations. In this latter group, we find the genesis of the notion of ‘communities of interest’.
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- Information
- Enterprising Care?Unpaid Voluntary Action in the 21st Century, pp. 131 - 146Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2011