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

自20世纪80年代以来，削减社会福利项目越来越普遍，自2006年全球金融危机以来，削减的力度更大。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口产生不利影响，并可能将个人进一步推向贫困，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的出现，作为对这些削减的回应，仍然存在一些问题，即紧缩政策是否会产生违背直觉的效果，鼓励一些根深蒂固的、个性化的社交和联系形式。这个项目通过调查志愿者社会关怀计划的结构、影响和经历，研究紧缩后社会和个人生活的一个方面。除了为人类学研究生提供经验、科学数据收集和分析方法方面的培训提供资金外，该项目还将通过向被投资制定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，从而增进对科学的了解。这项研究的结果将通过探索社区成员、志愿者、慈善机构工作人员和地方当局的经验来增强对紧缩和福利消解的影响的理解。研究将在地区背景下进行，自2010年实施紧缩措施以来，地方政府的资金已经削减了50%以上。除了紧缩的强烈负面影响外，该地区还出现了志愿服务的增强和慈善部门的增长。志愿者被招募到日间中心工作人员，开车送老年人去看医生，并为居家的成年人和残疾人提供居家陪伴。这项研究将调查一种由地方当局委托的志愿者家庭护理计划，称为家庭共享。在该计划中，健全的年轻人与年长的房主住在一起，并为年长的房主提供10小时的志愿者照顾和陪伴，以换取更低的租金。这个项目结合了对志愿者站点、家庭家庭共享空间、慈善和官僚组织的参与者观察，对组织和官僚行为者的半结构化和深入采访，以及志愿者参与者，以回答三个相互关联的研究问题：1)当强大的社会援助系统被侵蚀时，新形式的社会关系是否会取而代之？2)是什么促使个人成为志愿家庭照顾者，这些关系的发展轨迹有哪些因素？3)当代英国人关于自助和对陌生人的义务的概念是什么，是什么因素促成了这些信念和做法的形成？这项研究旨在阐明和绘制志愿者家庭护理中的社会、物质和经济结果的全范围。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.