Representations of Volunteerism among Young Indian Adults: An Indian Philosophical Perspective

Abstract

Volunteerism has been extensively studied in the global context and is very relevant in today’s rapidly changing world with growing inequalities and pressing public health concerns. There is a growing need for community programmes involving collective action.  Volunteerism is an integral part of community healing especially when a community involving large numbers of people have been psychologically and physically affected by traumatic events. Since volunteers are often a part of the affected community, the healing process involves both themselves and others. The present study used a quantitative content analysis framework to understand the representations young adults have of volunteerism.  The participants were 22 volunteers from a specific urban local setting in India. A word association task was used to generate content associated with volunteerism. Content analysis of the word associations yielded 24 codes that were further abstracted to three categories or representations of volunteerism. The present research tries to contextualise the representations to the traditional Indian philosophy and community healing principles. The findings have implications for a holistic approach to collective well-being of communities, especially in the Indian context, where concepts like ‘seva’ and 'dharma’ and ‘Śramadāna’ encourage a form of reciprocal giving where one gains from others as much as in sacrificing their needs.