Abstract
This chapter argues that friendship is not simply private and personal, that it has a public life, a life in civil society. The public aspects of friendship are demonstrated both by friends motivating each other to engage in volunteering, and by people creating new friendships in the course of volunteering and civic participation.This argument is intended to counter the influential line of sociological theorizing that portrays individualism as primarily self-interested or narcissistic. A personal concern with friendship or belonging or one’s own identity, it is argued, can connect to public agendas. Giving public expression to issues of personal identity is considered as something other than Richard Sennett’s ‘fall of public man’.
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Notes
- 1.
Good Neighbour Councils were created by the Australian government in 1949 in the wake of an unprecedented increase in immigration from war-ravaged countries in Europe. (Prior to World War II, immigration had been dominated by arrivals from Britain.) The primary objective of the councils was to assist migrants to assimilate and conform to the ‘Australian way of life’ and to preserve the British and ‘white’ cultural identity (Tavan 2008).
- 2.
The quotes from volunteers included below are taken from a study of ‘Volunteering and Tolerance’ (University of Sydney 2006) undertaken by Jennifer Wilkinson and Phillip Mar. The findings were initially presented as a conference paper (Wilkinson and Mar 2006). The small-scale study had employed a purposive sampling design. Its aims were ‘intensive, rather than … extensive’ and conceptually persuasive, rather than quantifiably demonstrative (Crouch and McKenzie 2006: 494). Participants were recruited by advertising with peak volunteering bodies, such as Co.As.It (The Italian Association of Assistance), Volunteering Australia and Centacare, known to engage migrant volunteers. Research subjects responded to semi-structured interviews, lasting up to three hours, designed to explore the themes of public and private association, personal involvement, identity, social inclusion and civic engagement. Profiles of individual respondents can be found in Wilkinson, J. (2010). ‘Personal Communities: Responsible Individualism or Another Fall for Public [Man]’. Sociology, 44(3): 453–470.
- 3.
Dimitri is a pseudonym chosen to protect this man’s privacy.
- 4.
The Lions is a community-based voluntary service organization with chapters across Australia and internationally. It has a focus on building community relationships to support health and educational initiatives and on providing humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. In Rotary ’s mission statement, the organization states that it seeks to bring together business and professional leaders to promote an ethical approach to business and community interaction and that it supports a range of humanitarian and community enrichment initiatives through voluntary service. Both organizations originated in the USA and are affiliated to international networks.
- 5.
Community Aid Abroad began in Melbourne in 1953 as a church-affiliated group called Food for Peace Campaign. The group sent weekly donations to a small health project in India. Food for Peace Campaign groups were established throughout Victoria. Community Aid Abroad and the Australian Freedom from Hunger Campaign eventually merged to become Oxfam Australia.
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Wilkinson, J. (2019). Neighbours and Citizens. In: The Public Life of Friendship . Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03161-9_9
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