The Backstage of Voluntariness: Work and Social Reproduction and the Tension be-tween Necessity and Privilege

• Applicants: Professorin Dr. Silke van Dyk; Privatdozentin Dr. Stefanie Graefe; Dr. Philipp Lorig
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research ; Sociological Theory
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 413222647

Following the analysis of voluntariness as a resource in the digital economy in the first funding phase, the research interest focuses now on voluntariness as a relational phenomenon against the background of intersectional social inequality(ies). We assume that voluntary ac-tion - for example, in social engagement or political activity - requires a) (autonomous) control over time and free time spaces and thus, above all, relief from the reproductive work necessary for all people. In this sense, voluntariness is b) systematically unequally distributed and c) regularly builds on the delegation of necessary work to (often migrantized) third parties, which d) is considerably facilitated under the conditions of digitalization and the platform economy. Accordingly, the subproject examines voluntariness as a privileged and relational resource. Comparing Germany and the United States, the subproject asks where, for whom, and how spaces for voluntary action emerge. The research interest focuses on the set of conditions of voluntariness as a privilege and asks for the role of potential forms of 'involuntariness' as well as for the constitutive role of digital infrastructures in this context. Methodologically, the research interest shifts from the investigation of individual activities to a qualitative investigation of the chains of externalization in an innovative mixed-methods design. Households with members, who are substantially engaged in voluntary activity serve as the starting point for the research. In a second step, the members of the respective households, service providers and employees in service companies are examined, who - often digitally mediated - take over necessary reproductive work and thus provide free spaces for voluntary activities. The subproject makes a substantial contribution to the research unit by focusing on the limits and grey areas of voluntariness and its implicit socio-economic preconditions. Thus, it contributes to sharpening the concept of voluntariness both sociologically and analytically. The subproject also makes an important contribution to the study of social inequality against the back-drop of digitalization and crises of reproduction in contemporary capitalism. In addition to individual and joint articles by the applicants, the applicant Lorig will finalize his cumulative habilitation thesis during the funding period.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 2983: Freiwilligkeit