Rethinking Volunteering and Cosmopolitanism: Beyond Individual Mobilities and Personal Transformations

ABSTRACT

In this paper we use assemblage thinking to offer a new interrogation of the relationalities of volunteering and development and to revisit volunteering’s relationship to cosmopolitanism. Recent debates about the rise of new actors in development cooperation have seen a growing interest in the geopolitical significance of volunteers and their contribution to development. Research has addressed the ways international volunteering can shape cosmopolitan subjectivities, whilst claims for volunteering’s universality are a key feature of global development policy. However, we argue that existing approaches to volunteering, cosmopolitanism and development remain contained by established development imaginaries and their ascription of agency, authority and expertise to actors from the global North. We use the idea of the assemblage, and data from two research projects, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent’s (IFRC) Global Review on Volunteering, and a doctoral research project on diaspora volunteering, to explore the constitution of what volunteering is within and between places. Through this, we identify alternative sites for interrogating the capacity of volunteering to challenge established ideas of agency, care and responsibility in development.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank for their contributions: the journal editors, Professor Lynn Staeheli and two anonymous referees for their helpful comments and suggestions in developing this paper; the field researchers and staff involved in the IFRC Global Review on Volunteering, as well as all the volunteers who participated in the research; Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) and Northumbria University for funding Dr Thomas’ doctoral research, Professor Nina Laurie as joint supervisor, Katie Turner for supporting the research, and the organisations and individuals who participated in the fieldwork.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. The recent hardening of policy framings of aid and development in terms of national self-interest (DFID 2015 UK Aid: tackling global challenges in the national interest, London: DfID) offers a particularly stark illustration of this.