Space, Citizenship, and Voluntarism: Critical Reflections on the Voluntary Welfare Sector in Glasgow

Abstract

IntroductionAgainst a background of growing global and local concerns about the political, economic, and social problems confronting advanced capitalist nations, the last ten years have seen a remarkable revival of interest in the role of voluntary associations as a possible`panacea' to`the crisis of post-Fordism' (Brown et al, 2000, pages 54^59). Faced with fears about declining political participation, anxieties about meeting welfare needs, and worries about the nature and meaning of citizenship, there is evidence of increasing state-initiated moves to develop the role and responsibilities of voluntary associations. This is particularly evident in the United Kingdom, which provides the immediate context for this paper. From the early 1980s to the mid-1990s, successive Conservative governments encouraged the``devolution of service responsibilities to voluntary organisations in order to save money and give consumers more choice'' (Deakin, 1995; Wolch, 1990, page 94). With the election of a Labour government in 1997, the momentum behind developing the role of the voluntary sector has continued as part of`New Labour's' programme of welfare reforms (Clarke et al, 2000;Powell, 1999). This has found expression in a variety of recent policy initiatives, ranging from voluntary sector`compacts' that contain commitments by government and the voluntary sector to improve the ways they work with each other (Lewis, 1999) to an Active Communities Initiative designed to increase public involvement in community life through volunteering, and to the introduction of new tax benefits for charitable organisations (Kendall, 2000). The cumulative product of these developments has prompted researchers to observe that,``From being a shadowy enclave at

Becoming Business-Like

“…Firstly through the discursive technologies of performance management (Keevers et al, 2012), including funding mechanisms (Brown, 1997;Fyfe & Milligan, 2003;Salamon, 1997), which following Mitchell Dean (who draws heavily on Foucault's work), I…”

“…Critical voices, however, argue it places isomorphic pressure transforming the nonprofit sector (Carey, Braunack-Mayer, & Barraket, 2009;Carmel & Harlock, 2008), threatening its distinctiveness (Sanders & McClellan, 2014, p. 69), resulting in an increase in managerialism and bureaucratization (Fyfe & Milligan, 2003;Jenkins, 2005). As Carmel and Harlock claim, NPOs are "embedded in a system of governance that tends to institute them as technocratic and generic service providers.…”

The Community Food Centre: Creating space for a just, sustainable, and healthy food system

“…Bringing services into the communities that need them most is commendable, but neighborhood-based initiatives (such as the CFC model presented here) have the potential to create disparities in overserviced and underserviced neighborhoods, particularly when hub development is associated with particular localized social service and/or charitable organizations rather than a broader and more systematic approach to identifying needs (Fyfe & Milligan, 2003). In addition, initiatives provided through community service and charitable organizations typically have varying standards and expectations, in contrast to the universal standards of government welfare programs (Trudeau, 2008), although these admittedly have eroded.…”

Geographies of labour in the third sector: making Hybrid Workforces in Place

“…Specifically, it is well established that there are uneven geographies of voluntary activity in the UK linked to demographic characteristics (e.g. Mohan and Bullock 2012), local cultures (Parry et al 1992;Macdonald 1996;Deakin 2001;Williams 2003) and institutional structures such as the local history of welfare provision (Mohan and Gorsky 2001) or funding regimes (Fyfe and Milligan 2003). Mohan and Bullock (2012) have recently shown that almost 90% of all voluntary work in the UK is done by little more than 30% of the population, and that this 'civic core' is disproportionately middle-aged, middle-class and female, and resident in more affluent parts of the country.…”

“…On the one hand successive UK governments -and indeed many elsewhere -have placed increasing faith in the sector as a vehicle for service delivery, community regeneration and civic participation across the country (Brown 2000;Kendall 2009;Macmillan and Townsend 2006;Alcock 2010a;Milligan and Conradson 2011;Ware 2012;Mohan 2013). On the other hand, the third sector displays some strong patterns of spatial differentiation both in voluntary activity (Geiger and Wolch 1986;Fyfe and Milligan 2003;Mohan 2011) and the paid workforce (Geyne-Rajme and Mohan 2012). Taken separately, these geographies have prompted concerns that the sector may not be able to respond to needs across the national landscape and, in particular, that those areas with the greatest needs may be least well served.…”