Abstract
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In this paper we subject volunteering within the neoliberal paradigm to a
Gramscian analysis. We argue that the rendering of volunteering as a civic good
forms part of the modern neoliberal state’s fashioning of consent for capitalist
rule. Gramsci’s concept of the ‘integral state’ incorporates antagonisms within
civil society as it attempts to demonstrate moral and intellectual guidance
to construct ongoing consent for capitalist rule. A Gramscian analysis of
volunteering reveals that, under neoliberalism, two different and competing
historical trajectories of volunteering have been conf lated into one model of
low-cost or unpaid labour that supplements the efforts of state and market,
but which does not seek to disrupt either. In doing so, the radical tradition of
volunteering, with its potential for social transformation, has been negated
as a new common sense understanding of volunteering has emerged that is
essentially apolitical, and which does not question fundamental structural
aspects of global inequality. This trend is especially evident in the United
Nations Sustainable Development Goals, where the language of community
empowerment, usually found in the radical volunteering tradition, has been
harnessed to assist the state and private sectors to restructure and reform, but
still continue, capitalism.