In this article I examine the work of home visiting volunteers as an expression of state intervention. I draw on my experience as an ethnographer based at an NGO office in South Manchester. I show how the state is made manifest in the mundane and quotidian practices of volunteering, parenting and ‘helping out’. I argue that volunteering operates as a governing technology promoting values such as self‐regulation, self‐help, independence and decision‐making as elements key to the right kind of citizen. The state conceals itself and its modes of operation through volunteering, but in the process it is also diluted. In this case, it relies on ideas of self‐development and self‐improvement, but people go further in exploiting governing technologies for their own purposes. It not only concerns (self‐)discipline but also maternal and gendered practices, social policy and different kinds of knowledges. The distinction between ‘indigenous’ or local knowledge and ‘expert’ or professional knowledge is key. Volunteering becomes a visible form of indigenous or local knowledge promoting the self‐regulation of women’s capacities and in doing so acts as a concealed expression of the state.

中文翻译：

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孕育和“帮助”：通过本地知识和专家知识进行志愿服务和国家干预

在本文中，我考察了家访志愿者的工作，以此作为国家干预的一种表现。我借鉴在南曼彻斯特的一个非政府组织办公室担任民族志专家的经验。我展示了如何在志愿服务，养育子女和“帮助”的平凡和俗套的做法中体现国家。我认为，志愿服务是一种管理技术，可促进诸如自我调节，自助，独立和决策等价值观，这些价值观是正确公民的关键要素。国家通过志愿服务来掩饰自己和它的运作方式，但是在此过程中它也被稀释了。在这种情况下，它依赖于自我发展和自我完善的思想，但是人们在为自己的目的开发治理技术方面走得更远。它不仅涉及（自律）纪律，还涉及孕产妇和性别行为，社会政策和各种知识。“土著”或本地知识与“专家”或专业知识之间的区别是关键。志愿服务成为土著或地方知识的一种可见形式，可促进对妇女能力的自我调节，并以此作为国家的隐性表达。