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    Volunteering as Performance: The Dynamic between Self-Interest and Selflessness within the Volunteer Industry

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    Date
    2013-04-26
    Author
    Bernstein, Joshua D
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    Abstract
    This thesis investigates volunteering as performance. In exploring this topic I discuss a dynamic between self-interest and selflessness in the observable performance of service through the social mechanisms of volunteerism. I argue that self-interest is a prominent motivation for volunteering, but its overt performance is kept in check by norms that emphasize selflessness. My argument centers on addressing this lack of acknowledgement toward self-interest within vernacular culture. My research draws examples from an individual, organizational, and global volunteer perspective. Ethnographic research was conducted for this study with a student group that organizes one of the American Cancer Society’s Relay For Life fundraisers. Within this organization, I conceptualize volunteering as a performance that requires a social actor to not just “do” service, but also “show do” and/or “explain show do” their behavior in front of an audience. This presentation culminates in a cultural performance where participants at Relay For Life perform a narrative of selflessness. Expanding my discussion of volunteering to a global perspective, my last chapter addresses volunteer tourism. I argue that the self-interest of both volunteers and volunteer travel companies reduces the recipients of volunteer tourism to essentialized and exociticized cultural "Others." I advocate for the overt acknowledgement of self-interest not only because self-interest is present, but also because it is a central dynamic that constructs volunteerism as performance.
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/149588
    Subject
    Volunteering
    volunteerism
    volunteer tourism
    voluntourism
    voluntoured
    Relay For Life
    American Cancer Society
    college student volunteerism
    college student volunteering
    volunteer motivation
    selflessness
    self-interest
    self-interest and volunteering
    Thailand
    performance studies
    ethnography
    i to i
    i-to-i
    volunteering as performance
    cultural performance
    Collections
    • Electronic Theses, Dissertations, and Records of Study (2002– )
    Citation
    Bernstein, Joshua D (2013). Volunteering as Performance: The Dynamic between Self-Interest and Selflessness within the Volunteer Industry. Master's thesis, Texas A&M University. Available electronically from http : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /149588.

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