How Come This Man Is Homeless?' An Ethnographic Exploration of Identity Work among Volunteers in a Diner Serving to the Homeless

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2365618
AutoresMiray Hamarat (İstanbul Technical University, İstanbul, Turkey), Ozge Merzali Celikoglu (0000-0003-0906-5700, İstanbul Technical University, İstanbul, Turkey, autor de correspondencia)
Año2020
Volumen49
Número6
Páginas777-805
Fecha de publicación2020-12-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Contemporary Ethnography (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0891-2416 • E-ISSN: 1552-5414
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0891241620931917
OpenAlexW3045344611
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas33

In this study, we explore the identity work among volunteers in a local restaurant in one of the metropolitan cities of Turkey, which serves to paying customers by daytime, and free food to the homeless in the evening. Our setting, which we call The Diner, is a local attempt to help homeless people whose number increases day by day. Through ethnographic fieldwork, we found that the volunteers at The Diner act as teams based on their selective association with a particular volunteer group. To gain an in-depth understanding of these volunteer teams, we examined the volunteers' identification process with volunteer work; structures and motivations of the teams; and collaborations and competitions between the teams. Our approach relies on Snow and Anderson's conception of identity work, and we utilized Goffman's terms of performance, teams, and definitional disruptions

Ethnography · Evening · Geography · Metropolitan area · Political science · Public relations · Sociology · Anthropology · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · Engineering · Nonprofit Sector and Volunteering · Psychology · Social Psychology · Tourism, Volunteerism, and Development