Inequality in Interaction: Equalising the Helper–Recipient Relationship in the Refugee Solidarity Movement

Postdoc Hjalmar Bang Carlsen, Associate Professor Nicole Doerr and Postdoc Jonas Toubøl have contributed to ‘VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations’ with the paper:

‘Inequality in Interaction: Equalising the Helper–Recipient Relationship in the Refugee Solidarity Movement'.

The paper supplements existing scholarship on the interactional process within volunteering with one that focuses on how inequality between volunteer and recipient of help is handled and (re)produced through interactions within voluntary groups. The authors focus on how empowerment projects with different interactional styles produce different forms of (in)equality on an interactional level despite dealing with very similar structural inequalities.

The paper defines interactional inequality as taking place along four dimensions: role distribution, framing rights, competencies, and sacrifice. Drawing on two different empowerment projects in the refugee solidarity movement in Denmark, the authors show how these dimensions of inequalities play out in the interaction between volunteers and refugees. They identify two strategies for overcoming the initial inequality between refugee and volunteer, one based on mutuality and another based on collectivity.

Lastly, they show how these strategies produce interactional inequalities of their own.

Get access to the article (open acces). Inequality in Interaction: Equalising the Helper–Recipient Relationship in the Refugee Solidarity Movement or here.