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Abstract

When it comes to contributions to community and organization, generosity is the principal emotion. Altruism is also strongly felt during such activity. Community involvement is the process by which volunteers, amateurs, and hobbyists can contribute to collective life. A broader sort of community involvement (sometimes also carried out on a regional or societal level) comes from pursuing volunteer activities, which may be enacted as serious, casual, or project-based leisure. This, the most common conception of community involvement, is often discussed as civil labor. Civil labor, however conceived of, generates social capital. In leisure, as in most other areas of life, many activities are structured, or organized, in small groups, social networks, and grassroots organizations as well as in larger complex organizations and still more broadly, in tribes, social worlds, and social movements. The chapter ends with an examination of caring and community involvement.

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© 2015 Robert A. Stebbins

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Stebbins, R.A. (2015). Contributions to Community and Organization. In: Leisure and Positive Psychology: Linking Activities with Positiveness. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-56994-3_7

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