This book aims to investigate the phenomenon of volunteering as a workfare event, as a synchronous rewriting of territorial policy and advocacy, according to the principles of risk and border. The two terms, as a solid sociological category, shed light on the material and semantic shift of European welfare. Beyond its contents, this book represents an important research experience of a complex European-wide survey network on the phenomenon of volunteering and a best practice of collaboration and cultural exchange between university researchers and men and women that work in the fi eld of social policies concretely and every day.

Anna D’Ascenzio is PhD in Sociology at Suor Orsola Benincasa University in Naples. She is a member of the research group URiT, The Social Topographies Research Unit. She has participated in many research projects, with national and international teams. Her research are social policies, welfare state and the environmental disasters.

Stefania Ferraro is research in Political Sociology at Suor Orsola Benincasa University in Naples. She is a member of the research group URiT, The Social Topographies Research Unit. Her research areas are social policies, welfare state; the current relationship between poverty, mental illness and mechanisms of the pathologisation of economic distress; the environmental disasters.