‘Weaponized volunteering’ and re-considering the volunteering-weaponization divide

Abstract

This introductory chapter to the monograph issue Weaponized Volunteering explicates and situates the theoretical and conceptual problems the collection addresses. It defines the concept of ‘weaponized volunteering’ and analyzes its importance for understanding the relations between contemporary trends of moralization and militarization or securitization. It does so by providing a brief genealogy of the concept of ‘volunteering’ and the rising public interest in it since the 1990s, with the upsurge of neoliberal transformations and a post-political public sphere. The introduction then continues to review changing ideas in the literature concerning civil–military relationships and also concerning the entanglement of what is considered civil and what falls under non-military ‘security’ domains. It then connects both themes to explain the value of the concept of ‘weaponized volunteering’. Finally, the introduction explores how the various articles in this monograph issue contribute to understanding how moralization and militarization, civic volunteerism, and securitization are increasingly entangled, and reinforce each other.