The project builds upon and elaborates on previous investigations into cultural voluntarism conducted by the Center for Research on Civil Society and Voluntary Sector. These studies are primarily conveyed through the reports from the preceding research projects:
The project has a broad focus on cultural voluntarism and is initially delimited to public and publicly funded cultural institutions. The project conducts in-depth studies on more specific topics within the framework of a qualitative case approach based on semi-structured interviews with stakeholders in selected cultural institutions. In sub-projects A and B, the cultural field is delimited to the museum and cultural heritage sector, and in sub-project C, it focuses on visual arts.
Sub-project A: Recruitment of volunteers – paths and strategies
What characterizes the recruitment paths and cultural institutions' motivation for cultural voluntarism within the museum sector? What strategies and priorities do the institutions have? How do recruitment strategies, paths, and motivation vary with institutional self-understanding?
Many institutions consider volunteers as a resource but also as a somewhat unstable resource that can be challenging to plan with. Therefore, recruiting volunteers is a continuous task that requires persistent focus and effort from the institutions. Many acknowledge that volunteers do not necessarily come on their own, especially without significant effort from the institutions. Previous conversations with staff and leaders in public and publicly funded cultural institutions (Segaard 2020) highlight the institutions' focus on aligning volunteers with the cultural institution's uniqueness and tasks, meaning "matching the specific cultural institution's nature and tasks with volunteers who have coinciding cultural interests" (Segaard 2020:38). This implies recruiting volunteers who share specific cultural interests and possibly expertise. This is particularly relevant where professionalism and professional cultural expertise are emphasized and linked to institutional self-understanding.
These observations provide a basis for exploring the institutions' recruitment efforts and their motivation for cultural voluntarism in more detail. From an organizational perspective, it involves examining how cultural institutions work on recruitment. It is particularly interesting to explore responsibility allocation and resource allocation in the organization, whether recruitment is prioritized as a regular and continuous task, collaboration with other organizations, and the use of individual- and institution-based networks. Finally, to contextualize cultural voluntarism, the question arises of how recruitment strategies and motivation for using voluntary efforts vary with institutional self-understanding. This aspect related to strategy and motivation for recruiting volunteers can further be examined and evaluated in light of the overarching cultural policy intention for diversity and broad representation in voluntarism. This requires a perspective on democracy and diversity.
Sub-project B: Networks and tools for training and competence development of volunteers and institutional exchange within the museum sector – digital and organizational.
Which digital platforms and organizational networks exist within the museum sector? How can they be developed as tools for training and competence development of volunteers and institutional exchange between institutions? Who should be responsible for these tools and networks – what role should institutions versus authorities play?
The cultural report "The Power of Culture" (Meld. St. 8 (2018-2019)) emphasizes how digital tools can contribute to democratizing the cultural field by making culture more accessible to a broader audience. However, it says little or nothing about how digitization can support internal institutional cultural relationships and thereby support and develop the quality of culture. Combined with clear indications that there are no good digital tools and platforms for this purpose available to cultural institutions, it is relevant to investigate this topic further. Not only can such tools support the cultural expertise of volunteers and thus the quality of their tasks, but potentially also contribute to making cultural voluntarism more accessible to more people. In grand terms, it is about democratizing cultural voluntarism.
Furthermore, it is relevant to explore the space for developing organizational networks for exchange of experiences on topics related to the use and organization of volunteers between cultural institutions. Such networks could potentially contribute to organizational learning, closer "cultural communities," common problem understanding and solutions within a cultural field. Given this, it can be assumed that such organizational networks could address the main reason why some cultural institutions do not use voluntary efforts, namely, the challenge of organizing volunteers and lack of capacity or finances to follow up on volunteers. On a more overarching level, the question is which structural and political measures are needed to support the development and maintenance of networks, and what role institutions versus authorities should play.
Sub-projects A and B focus on a small number of selected public and publicly funded cultural institutions expected to provide insight into issues of more general interest that go beyond individual institutions. Specifically, the setups are delimited to the museum and cultural heritage sector. The delimitation is anchored in previous research showing that the museum sector is the one that most extensively uses volunteers, while at the same time, institutions in the museum sector find it particularly challenging to organize and coordinate volunteers. Additionally, very few museums believe that there are good digital platforms and tools for training and competence development of volunteers, and relatively few see good opportunities for exchange of experiences at the institutional level. Museums further stand out because they are particularly of the opinion that it is the responsibility of the institutions themselves to facilitate such exchange of experiences. These findings, combined with the diversity of the museum sector with various types of cultural institutions, provide a good basis for mapping and exploring both (different) recruitment strategies and the space for networks and tools for training and competence development of volunteers and institutional exchange in the cultural fields. The cultural heritage area can also be included here.
Findings from sub-projects A and B:
Frivillighet i norsk museumssektor. Institusjonenes erfaringer, syn og forventninger
Sub-project C: Institutional self-understanding and cultural voluntarism – the role of professionalism
Is the diversity of institutional self-understandings in cultural fields a barrier to (a common understanding of) cultural voluntarism and its conditions? What role does the view of professionalism play for cultural voluntarism and its conditions?
The cultural report "The Power of Culture" (Meld. St. 8 (2018-2019)) emphasizes that voluntarism is and should be part of the fundamental elements of cultural life, but the question is whether all actors in cultural fields agree on this. In our 2021 survey (Segaard & Reymert 2022), it has been revealed that a significant reason some cultural institutions do not use voluntary efforts is the principled viewpoint that voluntarism undermines the principle that work should be remunerated. Some institutions also point out that the use of voluntary efforts contradicts their institutional self-perception as a professional cultural institution. Sub-project C narrows its focus to a small number of selected public and publicly funded cultural institutions assumed to provide insights into issues of more general interest beyond individual institutions. More specifically, the framework is limited to visual arts (and possibly performing arts). The rationale for this limitation is that previous studies indicate that these two cultural fields, visual arts and performing arts, use volunteers to a lesser extent, emphasize professionalism more, and particularly highlight "principled justifications" while placing less emphasis on the "intrinsic value" of voluntarism (Segaard & Reymert 2022).
These distinctive characteristics of the two cultural fields, visual arts and performing arts, will provide a good foundation for in-depth studies of the role that an emphasis on professionalism plays in the conditions, opportunities, and barriers of cultural voluntarism. In other words, these two cultural fields represent somewhat "extreme cases" in terms of emphasizing professionalism, and it can be expected that they will particularly contribute to shedding light on this aspect in relation to the perception of cultural voluntarism. At the same time, we also know that this general picture of the two cultural fields covers variation and nuances, which is precisely fruitful from a methodological perspective.
