Abstract:
Volunteer and community involvement have become key components of refugee resettlement services in New Zealand and other parts of the world. Although rich anthropological literatures have covered the study of both refugees and volunteers, there is limited understanding of how their social relationships develop and the long-term effects of this. In a context in which the state has largely withdrawn from providing ongoing assistance, volunteers are increasingly taking responsibility for helping former refugees resettle into host communities. Understanding the dimensions and repercussions of these relationships is of paramount importance for how anthropology conceptualises practices that have become part of refugee services in New Zealand, and the real impacts these have on the constitution of wider civil society and people’s experiences of resettlement. This thesis analyses the relationships between Colombian former refugees and volunteers in Auckland, Hamilton and Wellington, New Zealand. Drawing on theories of social exchange, I argue that their interactions were often framed around synergetic, and sometimes contending, notions of gifting, reciprocity and obligation. Encounters between volunteers and Colombians entail ongoing negotiation between people who hold different cultural understandings of exchange. While Colombians construe their relationships with volunteers in terms of patron-client ties, volunteers’ understandings of generosity – as an expression of Christian principles and other humanitarian moral discourses, including civic duty and ethical altruism – strongly influence the kinds of relationships they establish. The social exchanges that arise as a result of the intersection of perspectives have complex and unpredictable outcomes for the construction of relationality. While relationships between volunteers and former refugees at times helped Colombians gain a sense of belonging to New Zealand, at others they highlighted cultural difference and exacerbated former refugees’ feelings of alienation and marginalisation. Ultimately, people navigated their own understandings of generosity through cultural rationales that permitted “disinterestedness” and “selfinterestedness” to coexist, notions that were deeply important for how both groups understood themselves, their relationships and their place in the world.