Exploring Personal Communities: A Review of Volunteering Processes

在整个20世纪的社会理论中，“社区”的修辞一直被用来表示直接、情感和亲密关系的温暖，并与现代工作组织、国家和社会的冷酷理性和工具性形成对比。政治家和政策制定者都援引社区的修辞作为各种社会、经济和政治问题的答案，如民族主义、社会排斥、失业、教育、犯罪和贫困。然而，无论在社区倡议上花费了多少时间和金钱，社区仍然是难以捉摸的，其后果也是不可预测的。批评者认为，尽管社区旨在带来团结与和谐，但它同时也在其成员、边界、规范和信奉的价值观方面制造了冲突和分裂。社区有多重且有争议的定义，不能根据一些自上而下的政治议程来运作。事实上，社区在实践中展开的无数方式需要一种“自下而上”的方法，这种方法可以认识到社区修辞中存在的悖论，经常缺乏共识，并且对个人和社会需求同样敏感。社区的模糊性，随着个人主义和消费主义在西方社会及其他地区的兴起，已经对现有的社区概念提出了质疑，并要求在实践层面上采用更具想象力的方式来参与社区修辞。在这一文学流派中，“个人社区”作为一种自我选择和个性化的社区，在人际关系和为其成员提供支持的基础上蓬勃发展。虽然被描述为“个人成就”，但个人社区超越了友谊关系和慈善工作，其中隐藏着强大的社会性，如果释放出来，可能会对社会产生重大影响。我们通过志愿服务的视角来探索个人社区，以揭示个人在社区内部和社区之间相互体验和相互适应的方式。通过将个人社区的概念应用到志愿服务的公共环境中，我们希望对社区如何同时适应多样性、排他性和凝聚力有更细致的了解。审查评估个人社区对维持和提高这种志愿活动进行的当地社区个人生活质量的贡献。我们的目标是探索个人社区通过个人参与民主社会进程，为协商个人和集体身份提供途径，从而为社会的共同利益做出贡献。这不仅要通过分析现有的书面工作来实现，更重要的是要与来自特伦特河畔斯托克地区的志愿者社区进行接触。我们将与全国知名的新维克剧院社区项目“新维克边界”（New Vic Borderlines）密切合作，开展一系列活动，旨在以艺术的方式记录志愿者的经历，通过剧院住宅创建一个新的志愿者社区，并由志愿者自己进行志愿者表演。这些志愿者将从旨在帮助被边缘化的个人和群体获得新技能并为社会做出积极贡献的地方计划中抽取。特伦特河畔斯托克是一个后工业衰退的社区的例子，它严重依赖志愿者来支持许多经济、社会和文化活动。我们将为特伦特河畔斯托克社区提供一个参与我们理论回顾的机会，并提供一个双向知识转移的机会，以期以有意义的方式为关于特伦特河畔斯托克的经济、社会和文化可能性的辩论做出贡献。

Throughout 20th century social theory, the rhetoric of 'community' has been used to index the warmth of immediacy, emotion and close relationships and has been contrasted to the cold rationality and instrumentality of modern work organizations, the state, and society. The rhetoric of community has been invoked by politicians and policy makers alike as the answer to all sorts of social, economic and political problems such as nationalism, social exclusion, unemployment, education, crime and poverty. Yet, however much time and money is spent on community initiatives, community remains elusive and its consequences unpredictable. Critics argue that although community aims to bring unity and harmony, it simultaneously creates conflict and division over its membership, boundaries, norms and espoused values. Community has multiple and contested definitions and cannot be put to work according to some top down political agendas. Indeed, the myriad of ways in which community unfolds in practice calls for a 'bottom-up' approach that recognises the paradoxes built into community rhetoric, the frequent lack of consensus and is sensitive to individual and social needs in equal measure. The ambiguous nature of community, along with the rise of individualism and consumerism in Western societies and beyond, has called into question existing conceptualisations of community and called for a more imaginative way to engage with community rhetoric at the level of practice. 'Personal communities' feature prominently in this strand of literature as a type of community that is self-chosen and individuated, thriving on inter-personal ties and providing support for its members. Although portrayed as an 'individual achievement', personal communities go beyond friendship ties and charity work, having a powerful sociality hidden in them, one that if released could have a major impact on society. We explore personal communities through the lens of volunteering in order to shed light on the ways in which individuals experience one another and adjust to one another within and across communities. By applying the concept of personal community to the public context of volunteering, we hope to arrive at a more nuanced understanding of how communities actually work to accommodate diversity, exclusion and cohesion simultaneously.The review evaluates the contribution of the personal community to sustaining and enhancing the quality of life of individuals in their local communities where such volunteering processes take place. We aim to explore the idea that personal communities contribute to the common good of the society in terms of offering ways for negotiating individual and collective identity via individual engagement with democratic social processes. This will be achieved not merely by analysing existing written work but more importantly by engaging with volunteering communities from the Stoke-on-Trent area. We will work in close collaboration with the New Vic Borderlines, the nationally acclaimed community programme of the New Vic Theatre, to develop a series of activities aimed at documenting in an artistic way the experience of being a volunteer, creating a new community of volunteers via a theatre residential and putting on a volunteering performance by the volunteers themselves. These volunteers will be drawn from local schemes that aim at helping marginalised individuals and groups to acquire new skills and make a positive contribution to the society.Stoke-on-Trent is an example of a community in post-industrial decline which relies heavily on volunteers to support many of its economic, social and cultural activities. We will offer the community of Stoke-on-Trent an opportunity to engage with our theory review and provide a two way knowledge transfer opportunity with the view to contribute in a meaningful way to debates about the economic, social and cultural possibilities for Stoke-on-Trent.