The Fragile Threads of Volunteerism

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Kedrowicz explores the communicative accomplishment of social support in a volunteer organization. Specifically, she uncovers how meanings of support are negotiated through interactions between organization members during everyday encounters. To emphasize the socially constructed and contextually embedded nature of support, Kedrowicz sought to understand the ways in which support is constructed through talk, as well as organization members’ retrospective sense making processes. A concurrent examination of socialization, identification, and social support points to the relational nature of support, the role of socialization in the development of support expectations, and support as a means through which identifications develop. In short, this work problematizes understandings of support, socialization, and identification. Specifically, the emergence of the embedded nature of support as related to motivations to volunteer, socialization experiences, realities of support, and feelings of identification have paved the way for future investigations of support as a relational construct.