| dc.description.abstract | This thesis explores the temporal dimensions of women’s voluntary involvement in civic
activities. How and why people find or make the time to volunteer within their busy
lives is a puzzle given that volunteering is not always easy. It is not just about
finding/having time, it is also about synchronising with others and fitting into a group
when needed, and how this might be dovetailed with other commitments in the life of
a volunteer.
The thesis presents an account that allows for agency through negotiation within the
constraints of everyday demands. It argues that individuals cannot freely choose how
to use their time, that it is always a question of negotiation with others – partners,
children, employers, organisers, bureaucracies and so on.
This study adds distinctive conceptual contributions to the field of community and
volunteering studies by using the work of Norbert Elias to understand how women
negotiate the various networks in their lives. Data from three case studies of women’s
volunteering are analysed using Elias’s concept of the ‘we-I balance’ to explore the
motivations behind time for ‘community’ commitments being carved out of busy
schedules. The three case studies offer distinctive sites for examining ideas around
volunteering and civic participation and the making of community – and the challenges
and negotiations involved in this.
Through ethnographic fieldwork, including interviews, informal conversations and
poetry workshops, the study identifies volunteers as people who skilfully negotiate their
time with the organisation, with significant others in their lives, with themselves, and
with technology in order to facilitate their volunteering. In the process, it presents
findings about how time is experienced, managed and appropriately paced, and the
processes by which the agendas of collectivities and of individuals come to be
compatible in the ‘we-I balance’. | en |
