Doctoral Dissertation Research: Volunteer Domestic Care, Sociality, and Austerity

自上世纪80年代以来，削减社会福利项目变得越来越普遍，自2006年全球金融危机以来更是愈演愈烈。一些社会科学家、政策专家和记者描述了这种削减如何对边缘化人群产生不利影响，并可能使个人进一步陷入贫困并加深社会孤立。但是，随着新的、多样化的志愿服务和慈善社会关怀形式出现，作为对这些削减的回应，仍然存在一些问题，即紧缩政治是否会产生反直觉的效果，鼓励一些根深蒂固的、个性化的社会和联系形式。本项目通过调查志愿者社会关怀项目的结构、影响和经验，研究紧缩后社会和个人生活的一个方面。除了提供经费培训一名人类学研究生学习经验、科学数据收集和分析的方法外，该项目还将通过向投资开发更有效的方法向公众传播科学和科学方法的组织广泛传播其研究结果，增进对科学的理解。本研究的结果将通过对社区成员、志愿者、慈善工作人员和地方当局的经验的探索，加强对紧缩和福利解散的影响的理解。该研究将在地区背景下进行，自2010年实施紧缩措施以来，地方政府的资金削减了50%以上。除了紧缩带来的强烈负面影响外，该地区的志愿服务也得到了加强，慈善部门也在增长。志愿者被招募到日托中心工作，开车送老人去看医生，并为在家的成年人和残疾人提供在家陪伴。这项研究将调查当地政府委托的一种名为“家庭共享”的志愿家庭护理项目。在这种项目中，一个身体健全的年轻人与一位年长的房主住在一起，并为后者提供10小时的志愿照顾和陪伴，以换取减少租金。本项目结合参与者对志愿者站点、家庭共享空间、慈善机构和官僚机构的观察、对组织机构和官僚机构参与者的半结构化和深度访谈，以及志愿者参与者，来回答三个相互关联的研究问题：1)当强大的社会援助体系被侵蚀时，新的社会关系形式是否取而代之？2)是什么促使个人成为志愿家庭照顾者？哪些因素促成了这些关系的发展轨迹？3)当代英国人的自助和对陌生人的义务观念是什么？哪些因素促成了这些信念和实践的形成？本研究旨在阐明和描绘志愿家政服务的社会、物质和经济结果的全部范围。它还将深入了解使社会孤立长期存在的因素以及可能改善脆弱社会状况的潜在安排。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Cuts to social benefit programs have become increasingly common since the 1980s and have intensified since the 2006 global financial crisis. Some social scientists, policy experts, and journalists, have described how such cuts adversely affect marginalized populations and can push individuals further into poverty and deepen social isolation. But as new and diverse forms of volunteerism and charitable social care have appeared in response to these cuts, there remains some question as to whether austerity politics might have the counterintuitive effect of encouraging some entrenched and personalized forms of sociality and connectedness. This project studies one aspect of social and personal life after austerity by investigating the structures, impacts, and experiences of volunteer social care programs. In addition to providing funding for the training of a graduate student in anthropology in the methods of empirical, scientific data collection and analysis, the project would enhance scientific understanding by broadly disseminating its findings to organizations invested in developing more effective methods for communicating science and the scientific method to the public. Findings from this research will enhance understanding the impacts of austerity and benefit dissolution through an exploration of the experiences of community members, volunteers, charity staff, and local authorities.The research will be conducted in a regional context where funding for local governments has been cut by over 50 percent since 2010 when austerity measures were put in place. Along with strong negative impacts of austerity this region has also seen a bolstering of volunteerism and growth of the charity sector. Volunteers are recruited to staff day centers, drive the elderly to doctor’s appointments, and provide in-home companionship to home-bound adults and people with disabilities. This research will investigate a form of volunteer domestic care program commissioned by local authorities called homesharing in which an able-bodied young person lives with and provides 10 hours of volunteer care and companionship for an older home owner in exchange for reduced rent. This project combines participant-observation of volunteer sites, domestic homeshare spaces, charitable and bureaucratic organizations, semi-structured and in-depth interviews with organizational and bureaucratic actors, and volunteer participants to answer three interlocking research questions: 1) When strong social assistance systems are eroded, do new forms of social relatedness take their place? 2) What motivates individuals to become volunteer domestic caregivers, and what factors contribute to the trajectory of these relationships? 3) What are contemporary British notions of self-help and obligation towards strangers and what factors have contributed to the formation of these beliefs and practices? This research aims to illuminate and map the full range of social, material, and financial outcomes within volunteer domestic care. It will also provide insight into the factors that perpetuate social isolation as well as the potential arrangements that may ameliorate vulnerable social conditions.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.