The Needs And Communication Of Volunteers At Homelss Shelters In America:Experiencing Communitas

In a world demarcated by diversified role-sets in society,volunteering offers a contact zone where such classifications are dissolved.Communitas is not only present in countercultures or marginal realms,as Turner's theories indicate,but also is evident in such an increasingly popular and common activity embodying mainstream virtues as volunteering.The need to volunteer reveals a deeper longing for communitas,where people escape from their daily stratification,connect with other in purely based on their shared humanity,and return to their social structure transformed.In recent year,a growing body of literature on volunteerism has studied it from perspectives of management,motivations,psychological effects,economy,values,identities and so on,but few have examined the ritualistic features of it.Based on a nine-month ethnographic research process in Boston,the United States,which includes 36 in-depth interviews,this thesis attempts to demonstrate the applicability of Turner's theories to volunteering at a homeless shelter in a manner that also problematizes the paradigm.Volunteering at Our Home(OH)possesses traits characteristic of a rite of passage,including separation from mundane social structures,connection and sameness to others,ordeal,and transformations.During the service hours at OH,the features of communitas are evident.In it,we see the absence of social structures,temporary reversal of status,human connection,bare humanity,ordeal,sacredness,and transformation.Findings underscore that in such a transforming experience as communitas,relationship is the activator and connecting point.Analysis is presented through five parts: contact zone,relationships,homogeneity,ordeals,and reaggregation.Through a close examination of the features and dynamics of communitas in these volunteering experiences,this thesis contributes to the exploration of why and how all men and women,in certain situations,can understand and communicate with one another regardless of their differences,how connection with others activates other transformational elements,what the limits of such a transformational and transient relationship are,and why and how Turner's theories apply in general and specific ways in this contemporary context.