Volunteering, religion and social capital University Centre Saint-Ignatius Antwerp

 

Volunteering, religion and social capital 

University Centre Saint-Ignatius Antwerp.

December 7 to9, 2011

 

From 7 to 9 December 2011 - UCSIA organises the workshop "Volunteering, religion and social capital". This programme wants to investigate how the concept of volunteerism in faith-based organisations and congregational groups changed overtime and what motivates people today to become a volunteer; taking into account such trends as individualism, professionalization, secularisation, old and new types of solidarity, divers communities. Traditional voluntary work, religiously inspired volunteering, and volunteering in faith-based organisations and congregational groups seem to be in decline in Western Europe. Societal processes like individualism, professionalization, secularism, old and new types of solidarity and diverse communities are at the root of these changes. At the other hand, levels of social engagement remain high and a shift towards new types and institutional forms of solidarity can be detected.

 

Old types of solidarity (‘mechanic solidarity’ in Durkheim’s wording) are based on the ties that individuals have with their communities, parishes, family and neighbours. When there is a high degree of homogeneity within these groups, people are more prone to mutual help within informal networks and so strengthen social cohesion within those communities. Increasing individualisation processes have led people to experience those close and local ties as suffocating: they want to live their own lives and careers. Additionally, professionalization has transformed traditional voluntary social work into a paid occupation for which one needs certain qualifications and knowledge. In a context in which the role of local communities and parishes disappears and informal voluntary work looses its function and authority, a bottom-up approach of solidarity is gradually replaced by a top down approach. Social institutions and governmental bodies have to guide voluntary social work and the main role of social and educational institutions, companies and governmental bodies becomes blurred in its own way. Though both types of solidarity coexist within these institutions, the first type, the traditional form of solidarity seems to loose weight and is more and more substituted by a top-down institutionalized form of solidarity within society.

 

With secularization and increasing diversity, traditional solidarity and mutual help are undermined in yet other ways. Religious authorities no longer are in a position to impose their prescriptions on moral issues and social behaviour; and this adds up with the afore-mentioned individualisation in explaining why ‘doing good for others’ is no longer considered (accepted) as an unconditional virtue. Everyone is responsible to develop and safeguard their life and prosperity, and being a volunteer should fit in this personal career path. The growing heterogeneity of society has hastened this process through the fact that people no longer share birth place, history, value sets and cultures. Indeed social and spatial proximity always have acted as safeguards for solidarity. People with less opportunities can still count on the institutional solidarity created by the welfare state, but in public opinion they are often described (perceived) as profiteers. Thus finding volunteers to continue the necessary – mostly historical rooted – voluntary work in faith-based organisations and congregations is difficult. Mission statements and organisational cultures of these associations may not always correlate with individual motivations and career opportunities of potential volunteers or with the value sets and concepts of ‘volunteering’ within the envisaged groups.

 

http://www.ucsia.org/main.aspx?c=*UCSIAENG2&n=96079&ct=86741&e=263217