Between co-creation and daily routine: challenges of volunteering people for (re) vitalizing their small town in Eastern Germany

Abstract

Civic engagement faces major challenges, especially in cities affected by declining populations, as social networks have been thinned out and services in the sector of voluntary municipal compulsory tasks have been reduced. At the same time, civic engagement is particularly important in such cities in order to compensate for bottlenecks in services of general interest. This paper examines the life worlds of voluntarily engaged people and aims to contribute to an understanding of the different levels of involvement of certain groups of people in certain phases of life. On the basis of project histories in civic engagement, initiated by younger groups of people, the obstacles and needs experienced by those involved are highlighted. The findings show that bureaucratic and hierarchical hurdles, low appreciation of voluntary work and conflicts of interest between funding bodies and those involved are perceived by the latter as major obstacles. On the other hand, there are individual factors of civic engagement that are in harmony with the conditions of the life worlds of those voluntarily active, such as working together, an open, flexible framework for individual action and its flexible division and organisation. The paper is based on empirical data collected in individual case analyses in the small town Weißwasser in Eastern Germany.

Keywords

• Civic engagement
• Bottom-up process
• Demographic change
• Structurally weak region
• Weißwasser