Based on qualitative research into formal volunteering in semi-rural towns in the north-east and south-west of Germany, this article analyses the consequences of a turn to volunteering in the German welfare regime. The article explores the meaning and function of volunteering for volunteers, organisations and the welfare regime, and identifies a series of conflicting goals. While fiscal pressures and staff shortages may lead to an instrumental resort to volunteering, its value is repeatedly constituted by the fact that it is not waged or professionalised work. Individuals often seek out volunteering opportunities to (re)claim their autonomy or assert the value of care, in some cases to compensate for the frustrations of the neoliberal restructuring of care work. However, volunteers also provide components of caring squeezed out of waged care work due to this restructuring. Moreover, volunteers do not always substitute components of waged work, they also step in where previously there might have been a family member to help someone. The article discusses the value of practices of volunteering through the subjective interpretations of volunteers and coordinators to show how these conflicting goals provoke three types of boundary-work that define the remit of volunteering: (1) claims to volunteering as unique; (2) volunteering as compensatory activity; (3) the defence of volunteering through closure and resignification. The article suggests that volunteering in part stabilises a dual crisis of care, understood as a crisis of waged care work and of social reproduction, without offering a sustainable solution.

中文翻译：

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志愿服务的边界工作和无薪工作在护理双重危机中的价值


基于对德国东北部和西南部半农村城镇正规志愿服务的定性研究，本文分析了德国福利制度转向志愿服务的后果。本文探讨了志愿服务对志愿者、组织和福利制度的意义和功能，并确定了一系列相互冲突的目标。虽然财政压力和员工短缺可能导致自愿服务成为一种工具性的诉求，但其价值一再被它不是有薪或专业化的工作这一事实所构成。个人经常寻找志愿服务的机会来（重新）获得他们的自主权或维护护理的价值，在某些情况下，是为了补偿新自由主义护理工作重组的挫败感。然而，由于这种重组，志愿者也提供了从有薪护理工作中挤出的护理成分。此外，志愿者并不总是替代有薪工作的组成部分，他们还会介入以前可能有家庭成员帮助某人的地方。本文通过对志愿者和协调员的主观解释来讨论志愿服务实践的价值，以展示这些相互冲突的目标如何引发定义志愿服务职权范围的三种类型的边界工作：（1） 声称志愿服务是独一无二的;（2） 作为补偿活动的志愿服务;（3） 通过关闭和重新辞职来为志愿服务辩护。文章指出，志愿服务在一定程度上稳定了双重护理危机，该危机被理解为有薪护理工作和社会再生产的危机，但没有提供可持续的解决方案。