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from Part I - Intentions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 June 2021
Development volunteering demanded ordinary people leave the comforts of home to spend one, two or more years in previously unfamiliar reaches of the Global South. Why did tens of thousands of Australians, Britons and Americans respond to this call and why were they so enthusiastic about it? At the heart of this question lies a broader problem: how and why did private individuals seek to become involved in international political action? To closely engage with the motivations of volunteers, this chapter is based primarily on a cache of application questionnaires and correspondence from intending candidates for the Volunteer Graduate Scheme. Scattered across 112 boxes in the National Library of Australia, this collection includes virtually every application the scheme received from its establishment in 1950 to its final disbanding in 1969. The total number of applications is relatively small – in the hundreds rather than the tens of thousands received by the Peace Corps – but because of this, questionnaires were descriptive and provided space for volunteers to ruminate about their motivations, often at length.
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