Bureaucratic literacies, community volunteering and social change in the Philippines
Bureaucratic literacies, community volunteering and social change in the Philippines
Speaker: Dr Chris Millora, Goldsmiths
When: Thurs 20 November, 12:30-2PM
Where: Fulton 212 / Zoom Webinar
"In the Philippines, local volunteer action inspired by communal, person-to-person solidarity coexists with forms shaped by the formalised mechanisms of NGOs, funders and government programmes. Drawing on my recent book Local Volunteering, Adult Learning and Social Change in the Philippines (Bloomsbury Academic 2025), I explore how literacy and learning shape the ways bureaucratic forces from state and non-state development actors influence the activities, relationships, and identities of local volunteers. I will take a closer look into volunteers’ and other actors’ interactions with written texts such as the manuals they read, certificates they received and documents they were expected to produce. In doing so, I demonstrate how literacy and volunteering can, counterintuitively, reproduce and even intensify inequalities within already unequal communities. This ‘critical’ view of volunteering is important especially as the United Nations declares 2026 as the International Year of Volunteering."
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