Print Email Facebook Twitter The Obligation to Volunteer as Fair Reciprocity? Welfare Recipients’ Perceptions of Giving Back to Society Title The Obligation to Volunteer as Fair Reciprocity? Welfare Recipients’ Perceptions of Giving Back to Society Author Kampen, Thomas (University for Humanistic Studies) Veldboer, Lex (Hogeschool van Amsterdam) Kleinhans, R.J. (TU Delft Urban Studies) Date 2019 Abstract Dutch citizens on welfare have to volunteer at Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in return for their benefits. Through applying the ‘worlds of justification’ of Boltanski and Thévenot, this article aims to provide a better theoretical and empirical understanding of social justice of policies that obligate welfare clients to participate in CSOs. The analysis of 51 in-depth interviews with Dutch welfare recipients shows that respondents perceive these policies partly but not unilaterally as unfair. If respondents perceive welfare as ‘free money’ and if they are convinced that civic behavior demands interventions against free riding on welfare resources, ‘mandatory volunteering’ is considered as fair. Our main contribution is to the theoretical debate on recognition and redistribution by showing empirically how ‘othering’ plays an important role in determining when mandatory volunteering becomes a matter of redistribution or recognition. Subject Social justiceWelfare policiesWorkfareVolunteeringRecognition To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:74d622fd-b927-4db6-a09d-f4e633b39272 DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-018-00082-4 ISSN 0957-8765 Source Voluntas: international journal of voluntary and non-profit organizations, 30 (5), 991-1005 Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type journal article Rights © 2019 Thomas Kampen, Lex Veldboer, R.J. Kleinhans Files PDF Kampen2019_Article_TheObl ... Fair_1.pdf 526.33 KB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:74d622fd-b927-4db6-a09d-f4e633b39272/datastream/OBJ/view