Digitalization, Voluntary Labour and Social Services in Rural Regions

In many rural communities, non-profit organizations and voluntary work are of vital importance for the maintenance of social services. Nevertheless, the local organization of social services provision has not only experienced large changes in the context of social restructuring in the past decades, but is also af-fected by the technological changes in the context of the digital transformation. Despite this concern, we know little about digital technologies' effects on organized civil society, voluntary work and the supply of social services. We analyse the role of digitalization in the organization of social services in a given rural area. We do this by focusing on the distribution of services between different types of organizations as well as between professional and voluntary labour. Specifically, we want to find out whether digital technologies in this context change modes of professionalization vs. participation respectively of control vs. autonomy in single organizations and in the local field as a whole and how these changes affect the willingness and ability to contribute and integrate voluntary work in the local provision of social services. For the analysis of structure, practices, and developments within the local organizational field of social services we decided for a case study approach in the small municipality of Wendeburg, Lower Saxony, Germany , conducting qualitative interviews with representatives of a sub-sample of those organizations identified in the case region. Therefore we are mapping the spatially delimited social service related organizational field in the case region, explore what role local suppliers of social services ascribe to digital technology, and research the organization of the overall provision of social services as well as digital technologies' effects on the organization of social service provision. The findings can then be contrasted with current expectations concerning digitalization and its role for social service provision in rural areas.