Based on an ethnographic analysis of volunteer management practices in faith-based organizations in Zambia, this article outlines the dilemmas that these organizations face when deploying volunteers. Due to financial constraints, most of these organizations have to rely on voluntary work from local residents in order to realize their goals. I show that when the volunteers’ work is concerned with social problems that are deemed to be controversial, faith-based organizations are at pains to demonstrate that their aims and activities should be categorized as ‘social work’ or ‘humanitarian assistance’, and not as activist (party) political engagement. Yet since volunteers are only loosely linked to these organizations in respect to their formal status, in practice they have a great deal of leeway in how issues are handled. This means that some of them use their commitment to volunteering to pursue their own political agendas. The article explores the strategies that faith-based organizations use to navigate the challenges that this kind of ‘partisan volunteering’ pose.

中文翻译：

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管理不守规矩：基于信仰的组织中志愿者管理实践的（反）政治

基于对赞比亚信仰组织志愿者管理实践的民族志分析，本文概述了这些组织在部署志愿者时面临的困境。由于财政拮据，这些组织大多不得不依靠当地居民的志愿工作来实现他们的目标。我表明当志愿者的工作涉及被认为有争议的社会问题时，信仰组织会竭力证明他们的目标和活动应归类为“社会工作”或“人道主义援助”，而不是作为积极分子（政党）的政治参与。然而，由于志愿者在正式身份方面与这些组织的联系很松散，实际上他们在如何处理问题上有很大的回旋余地。这意味着他们中的一些人利用他们对志愿服务的承诺来追求他们自己的政治议程。这篇文章探讨了基于信仰的组织用来应对这种“党派志愿服务”带来的挑战的策略。