http://pathwaysthroughparticipation.org.uk/2009/12/volunteering-and-society-in-the-21st-century/ What creates and sustains active citizenship? Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:30:56 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 http://pathwaysthroughparticipation.org.uk/2009/12/volunteering-and-society-in-the-21st-century/comment-page-1/#comment-395 Colin Rochester Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:05:58 +0000 http://pathwaysthroughparticipation.org.uk/?p=275#comment-395 Veronique, thanks for mentioning our book: it has taken a good deal of blood, sweat and tears to get to this point. We have been aiming at two main targets. The first was to consolidate all that was worth knowing about volunteering in one volume. We have had the advantage of being able to draw on more than ten years’ work at the Institute for Volunteering Research as well as the wider national and international literature but it is a mammoth task. We would be glad to hear from colleagues who feel we have overlooked key areas and valuable evidence. The second aim may be more important: we want to kick-start a discussion about the extent and range of volunteering. It seems to us that the way in which volunteering is commonly understood and discussed – what we call the ‘dominant paradigm’ – is so narrow and inadequate as to resemble a ‘flat-earth map’. We hope that Volunteering and Society in the 21st Century will point the way towards a ‘round earth map’ which will do justice to a broader, more heterogeneous and less tidy view of volunteering. Please join this debate! Veronique, thanks for mentioning our book: it has taken a good deal of blood, sweat and tears to get to this point. We have been aiming at two main targets. The first was to consolidate all that was worth knowing about volunteering in one volume. We have had the advantage of being able to draw on more than ten years’ work at the Institute for Volunteering Research as well as the wider national and international literature but it is a mammoth task. We would be glad to hear from colleagues who feel we have overlooked key areas and valuable evidence. The second aim may be more important: we want to kick-start a discussion about the extent and range of volunteering. It seems to us that the way in which volunteering is commonly understood and discussed – what we call the ‘dominant paradigm’ – is so narrow and inadequate as to resemble a ‘flat-earth map’. We hope that Volunteering and Society in the 21st Century will point the way towards a ‘round earth map’ which will do justice to a broader, more heterogeneous and less tidy view of volunteering. Please join this debate!

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