The Worth of Their Work: The (In)visible Value of Refugee Volunteers in the Transnational Humanitarian Aid Sector
Research output: Contribution to book/conference proceedings/anthology/report › Chapter in book/anthology/report › Contributed
Contributors
Abstract
Scholarship on invisible work highlights how volunteers’ labour is devalued and obfuscated because it is framed as something ‘noneconomic’. This article shows how volunteers’ labour is invisible and noneconomic when it is reframed as aid. Drawing upon a case of refugee volunteers in Jordan’s humanitarian aid sector highlights how framing work as aid transforms their labour into objects they ‘receive’ and ‘consume’ as benefits because ‘work’ is understood as something they lack or need. Volunteers are therefore both workers and beneficiaries in relation to aid organisations. This ambiguous positioning distinguishes them and what they do in the workplace from ‘work’. This case elaborates understandings of processes that delineate volunteer labour as invisible work in practice, and provides a starting point for further discussion on the relationship between invisible and insecure work. It also expands empirical knowledge on volunteering and invisible work within the Global South.
Details
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Work Employment and Society (WES) |
Place of Publication | London |
Publisher | SAGE/British Sociology Association |
Pages | 928-944 |
Number of pages | 17 |
Volume | 36 |
Publication status | Published - 8 Jun 2022 |
Peer-reviewed | No |
External IDs
unpaywall | 10.1177/09500170221082481 |
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Scopus | 85131752135 |
Mendeley | 5f79663a-e181-32ad-b979-81d55225754a |
WOS | 000810499300001 |
Keywords
Research priority areas of TU Dresden
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- Public Law
- Historical Linguistics
- Applied Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Computational Linguistics
- Engineering Design, Machine Elements, Product Development
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Subject groups, research areas, subject areas according to Destatis
- Communication and Information Technology
- Business Administration
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- Urban Planning and Settlement
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Sustainable Development Goals
- SDG 17 - Partnerships for the Goals
- SDG 14 - Life Below Water
- SDG 8 - Decent Work and Economic Growth
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ASJC Scopus subject areas
Keywords
- Global South, humanitarian aid, invisible work, refugees, volunteer work