Angela M. Eikenberry,Roseanne M. Mirabella,and Billie Sandberg (eds.), Reframing Nonprofit Organizations: Democracy,Inclusion, and Social Change. Melvin & Leigh

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations -     

Robin M. Williams Lecture, 1994: Taking society seriously

Civil society provides essential balance to the rising power of national states and market economies. Particularly in the United States, however, the economy and state are squeezing civil society, with negative consequences. One result is that market rationality supplants other moralities, with attendant changes in social practices. Examples are offered from education, health care, and federal tax policy. All three legs of the metaphorical social tripod of civil society, economy, and the state need to be strong. Institutions of civil society sustain individuals and societies, but require structural and cultural support if they are to complement and counterbalance the logic and practices of economy and state.This paper was presented as the First Annual Robin M. Williams, Jr., Lecture at the University of Delaware, February 24, 1994; the Eastern Sociological Society annual meeting, Baltimore, Maryland, March 19, 1994; and the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, North Carolina, March 28, 1994.     

Harnessing Fortune: Personhood,Memory, and Place in Mongolia by Rebecca M. Empson

ABSTRACT

Since the change of regimes in 1989, private property has become the symbol of the new era in the postsocialist part of Europe—an ideological tool as well as a vessel for creating and realizing identities. For young people in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, buying an apartment is the most common way to secure one's housing. However, it is accompanied by personal sacrifices and debt, resulting in uncertainties for many years to come. Therefore, the decision whether to buy or rent significantly influences young people's modes of life. Nevertheless, securing one's housing is not solely an economic question, but also a part of an intimate process of creating a personal space. To feel at home means to make it one's own, hence to dive into the process of constant re-negotiation. The aim of this article is to analyze the relationship between property relations and the process of creating a home. The research data originates from intensive year-long qualitative fieldwork with thirty-five informants in Bratislava. As the results show, in a postsocialist society of uncertainties, private property is conceptualized as a personal goal and point of stability, but it also adds specific tensions and dilemmas to the notion of home. In relation to this, both home and property are parts of the same ongoing process of appropriation—influenced by preferences in taste, ideal notions, and social aspirations, as well as by broader social and economic factors.