Introduction to the special issue on unaffiliated volunteering: the universality and importance of volunteering

ABSTRACT

This special issue of Environmental Hazards provides a critical look at the contested relationship between formalised disaster management organisations and the emergent power of unaffiliated informal volunteers. Using international case studies, the five papers identify conceptual, contextual and practical challenges and opportunities. Much attention is given to definitions; these are important as through definitions whole categories of people and activity can be included as volunteering or excluded and treated as invisible. The emergent nature of informal volunteers provides surge capacity in emergencies – something all the papers in this special issue are concerned with in different ways. Another attribute examined is that informal volunteers, operating without the constraints typical of government agencies, can offer organisational agility, flexible problem-solving, and ready access to evolving information and communication technology. However, also examined are the potential problems of legal liability and questions about the rights and obligations of volunteers. A paper on indigenous volunteering in emergencies starts to fill a major gap in understanding of the roles of volunteers in indigenous communities. Four Australian cases are used to examine what informal volunteering could look like in action. It appears that governments almost everywhere, want more citizen involvement and self-reliance in emergencies, but on the government’s terms.

KEYWORDS:

• Volunteers or volunteering
• unaffiliated volunteers
• emergent volunteers
• informal volunteers

1. Introduction

This special issue of Environmental Hazards provides a critical look at the role of spontaneous (or unaffiliated) volunteers in managing disasters. The long recognised but contested relationship between formalised disaster management organisations and the emergent power of unaffiliated volunteer action (see Dynes, 1994; Stallings & Quarantelli, 1985) continues to demand a more thorough investigation of evolving issues. The selected papers identify conceptual, contextual and practical challenges and opportunities of spontaneous disaster volunteering steeped in empirical analysis and rich international case studies. Collectively, these papers reflect many of the recent developments in research, policy and practice of disaster risk management and show that the nature of disaster volunteering is highly responsive to and reflective of overall societal changes such as in the legal context, culture and technology.

The papers report within a global risk landscape that is undergoing rapid and profound changes across DRR, climate change and sustainable development (see GAR 2019). Disaster impacts and risks continue to grow in scale and complexity. There is increasing concern about and acknowledgement of global systemic risks: these include recent unprecedented droughts, heatwaves and wildfires. The impacts of the 2019/2020 Australian fires and the 2020 US fires are cascading through most aspects of society, economy and environment. The Covid-19 pandemic is not only a cascading and systemic risk but has forced systemic responses as well. These crises occur against the reality of growing inequalities, violence, livelihood and food insecurity, among other fundamental issues that undermine people’s capacities to deal with all forms of hazards and risks. Another important contextual factor is provided by the need for coherence across the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030, the Paris Agreement on climate change, and the Sustainable Development Goals – the UN’s Agenda 2030 for resilience and sustainable societies. Implementing these major global agreements is fundamental both to reducing risk, and to enhancing people’s security and wellbeing everywhere.

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, a global roadmap for disaster resilience, calls for an increased role for civil society, volunteers, organised voluntary work organisations and community-based organisations. This expanded role relates not only to response, but design and development of policies, plans and standards for disaster risk reduction; engagement in the implementation of local, national, regional and global plans and strategies; development of a culture of prevention and education on disaster risk; and advocacy for resilient communities and an ‘inclusive and all-of-society disaster risk management that strengthens synergies across groups’ (UNISDR, 2015, p. 23). This is also a clear call for greater involvement of civil society and unaffiliated volunteers.

Past experiences show that volunteers are the lifeline for disaster response. For example, following the Hebei Spirit crude oil spill in December 2007, in addition to 152,695 military personnel, 32,356 police officers, 17,460 coast guard personnel, 55,838 professional workers, 6663 members of the Korea Marine Environment Management Corporation and 76,684 local civil servants, an astounding 1,226,730 volunteers came from across South Korea to participate in the clean-up (Park et al., 2019).

The example of Canada is used here as generally reflecting the situation in many countries. In 2018, over 12.7 million Canadians (aged 15 and older) formally volunteered for charities, non-profits and community organisations devoting 1.6 billion hours, the equivalent to almost 858,000 full-time jobs (Hahmann et al., 2020). Yet, ‘formal’ volunteering (affiliated with an organisation or group) is just part of the picture as, nearly three-quarters of Canadians (22.7 million) volunteered informally in 2018 by helping people directly with housework, care, shopping, and driving, devoting about 3.4 billion hours, the equivalent of over 1.7 million full-time jobs (Hahmann et al., 2020). Canadians who experienced a major emergency or disaster turned for help to a family member (37%), neighbour (24%) or a friend (15%). Canadians affected by major emergencies or disasters less often turned to formal channels such as local government services (15%), first responders (9%), police (9%) or provincial government (5%) (Ibrahim, 2016). Nearly 60% were asked for assistance by someone else during the emergency, and 91% were able to help out. This highlights the critical importance of family and community as organisationally unaffiliated ‘first responders’ (Chen et al., 2013).

We have not set out a single definition of what constitutes such a ‘volunteer’ for the purposes of this special issue, but have rather let each paper define the concept as appropriate for its purposes. This is in the interests of inclusion, as most definitions exclude some categories of volunteers and volunteering. Nonetheless, a key attribute across the different types and roles of volunteers considered in this issue, is that they are not affiliated with a volunteer organisation. Volunteering is something we all do at different times, as highlighted by the Canadian data. How we analyse and value volunteering and volunteers is contingent on definitions and very often on the visibility of the activity. Volunteers active during an event of great media and political interest attract attention and are widely reported and studied – in stark contrast to, for example, the nearly invisible hundreds of thousands who support community activities or community members needing assistance with their daily lives. These volunteers are members of no organisation, have no visibility, receive no training and little recognition. By some definitions, these groups are not even volunteers. Nor are the families of volunteer firefighters or caterers, etc. typically considered, yet they support and make the visible volunteering effort possible. Likewise, bystanders who intervene to render first aid, provide rescue, move heavy objects trapping people (such as buildings or trains), or offer other types of support are widespread and themselves the subject of research (Twigg & Mosel, 2017). These examples highlight that the scope of informal or unaffiliated volunteering is very broad, and can defy precise definition.

The question of how to define what a ‘volunteer’ is examined in more detail in McLennan, Whittaker, Kruger and Handmer, who introduce the concept of ‘outsider emergency volunteering’ to describe any volunteering that ‘aims to assist communities in any aspect of disaster preparedness, response, relief and recovery, but is not registered with or under the direction of a formally recognised emergency management organisation’. By focusing on challenges between authority and legitimacy, the authors draw on co-production theory to examine four Australian cases involving outsider emergency volunteering. The authors find that the very formalised and defined foundations of authority and legitimacy in emergency management needs to soften and expand to become more networked and distributed. Their four cases provide examples on what this changed foundation for authority and legitimacy could look like on the ground, in contrast to formal, written emergency management plans and operating procedures. The ‘hedgehog’s dilemma’ is used to illustrate a key issue for government: they want community initiative, but also want to control it; as control is increased the initiative is brought into government and the self-organising nature of the community initiative is undermined.

Regardless of the definition employed, the reality of spontaneous and unaffiliated volunteering in support of emergency management raises many issues, some of which are examined in this collection. Unaffiliated volunteers generally emerge from the communities impacted by disaster, and also often from other communities who find ways to support those impacted through for example fund raising, matching needs with resources, or IT support. Through on-line or digital volunteering, volunteers can be located far from the area of direct impact.

The emergent nature of informal volunteers provides surge capacity for major disasters, when a whole of society response is called for. All the papers in this special issue are concerned with this fundamental issue in different ways. Handmer and Maynard examine surge capacity in the context of the near complete destruction of the built infrastructure and housing stock in a major but remote city – the northern Australian capital city of Darwin after Cyclone Tracy on Christmas day 1974. Under such circumstances, those in the affected area need to organise themselves and make maximum use of local resources to cope with the immediate aftermath of impact. Creating such surge capacity requires a whole of society response with the official system working with the capacities of people, businesses and organisations outside the formal emergency sector. Informal volunteering and emergent leadership in Darwin and across Australia were critical to the immediate response and relief. Volunteering was widespread and, in many cases, merged almost seamlessly with local official responses.

Because it typically emerges from the affected communities, informal volunteering (broadly defined) is characterised by its inclusiveness, in contrast with formal affiliated volunteers who – for a range of reasons – are often from a more narrow demographic. The paper by Yumagulova, Phibbs, Kenney, Yellow Old Woman-Munro, Christianson, McGee, and Whitehair explores this issue by starting to fill a gap in our understanding of the role of volunteers in emergencies and disasters in Indigenous communities. Based on collaboration amongst Māori, Métis-Cree and Bashkir researchers, a Dine’ and a Siksika practitioner, as well as a non-Indigenous researcher, this article draws on Māori (Aotearoa-New Zealand), First Nations (Canada), and Navajo Nation (U.S.) case studies and practitioners’ experiences managing and volunteering for emergencies. The article offers us a unique community-based view of enablers and challenges to effective volunteering in these Indigenous communities. It offers suggestions for resolving systemic barriers to volunteering through governance, coordination and training.

Another attribute that can distinguish unaffiliated volunteering is its capacity to innovate. This is because informal volunteers emerge to deal with the situation as they find it – something that can cause tension with officials. Although it is orthodoxy that official emergency management organisations need to be flexible and adaptive, they nevertheless operate within significant administrative and political constraints and must follow established procedures. This can make innovation slow and challenging especially during an evolving or unusual event. Stone, Waldman, and Yumagulova explore the qualities that the emergent groups of unaffiliated volunteers can contribute to emergency response and recovery led by official organisations. These qualities include organisational agility, flexible problem-solving, and early access to technological expertise and innovation, especially in the domain of information and communication technology (ICT). In exploring the recent hurricanes and floods in coastal Louisiana and Texas, the authors focus on the case of the emergent volunteer-based ‘Cajun Navy’ that utilised a ‘bricoleur-like assemblage of ICT applications like Zello, Facebook, and other media to recruit and coordinate volunteers, manage the recovery needs of disaster victims, and deploy resources in the field’. In particular, this paper analyses the ‘Cajun Army’ as an example of how technological innovation is improvised by the emergent voluntary sector in the midst of crises and can be stabilised for future contributions to emergency management.

Despite the reality that unaffiliated volunteering is very widespread and important in emergency management, volunteers can confront impediments and the official system has concerns over the legal liability, among other issues, that might be associated with unaffiliated volunteers. The papers in this issue address aspects of these impediments and concerns with Handmer and Maynard using a historical analysis to consider what has changed to impede and facilitate emergent volunteering. Albris and Lauta focus on the critical issue of responsibility and liability for informal volunteers in emergencies. This is particularly important given the broader call from some agencies and researchers for ‘all-of-society disaster risk management’. By discussing the existing research literature and legal cases pertaining to the question of liability for volunteers, Albris and Lauta identify three issues that require the attention of legal and social studies scholars in the future: a better examination of grey zones around vague Good Samaritan clauses and volunteer protection acts; addressing the lack of awareness of the rights and obligations from the point of view of volunteers, and addressing simultaneously the liability associated with acting, and the liability associated with not acting.

Unaffiliated informal volunteering is a powerful force for inclusion, innovation, and support for communities in crisis. It is a strong force for good, and in many communities helps fill gaps official systems cannot fill, because of their mandates, capacities or operating constraints. It is important that we conceptualise the topic clearly, however while tight definitions can be useful in research, they can also exclude certain types of volunteers and identifiable groups. Care is needed to ensure that our work is inclusive. In the arena of policy and practice, both the official emergency management system and unaffiliated volunteers share the aim of supporting people and communities in crisis. The best result will likely be achieved through cooperation. There needs to be more acceptance of the reality and benefits of informal volunteering, and efforts made to identity and consider reducing impediments so that these benefits can be realised – in line with the strong rhetoric from governments on community resilience and civil society responsibility. The benefits of unaffiliated volunteering of speed, innovation, inclusiveness, local community and cultural knowledge and surge capacity, can also bring downsides, and efforts also need to go into reducing these and their potentially negative effects. This special issue highlights these issues and examines some of the ways that informal volunteering contributes to disaster risk reduction.