“Voluntas” – Voluntary Service as a Job – Transgressive Forms of Voluntary Service. Continuity and Termination

This paper describes the problem of voluntary work in the historical context. Author proposes a soft reconceptualisation of the theoretical concept of voluntary action based on etymological and semantic perspectives of voluntas. The semantic background is useful for the reinterpretation of the logic of the evolution of voluntary work from the concept of classic charity to the contemporary sport volunteerism, voluntary action in the time of “big sport events”, and so on. This evolution is significant for the late modernity and for the crisis situation in the labour market at the beginning of the 21st century. Finally, “voluntary” nowadays means something close to work in various labour sectors, but the classic motive of voluntas is still noticeable. The author, finally, introduces the results of an empirical investigation carried out in 2011 in Poland (Poznań, Wrocław, and Gdańsk).