Social Sciences

This article presents the results of a study on the dilemmas and practices of social work practitioners involved in the Italian return procedure, in particular those working within repatriation centers. Although social work plays an increasing role in migration governance in Italy, the knowledge on day-to-day experiences and practices of social work practitioners working within repatriation procedures remains limited. Based on a Horizon project exploring the impact of return policies on migrants and on those involved in their implementation, this article explores how social work practitioners navigate conflicting mandates, restricted discretionary space, and the limited recognition of their role. The study, which uses qualitative research methods, combines three analytical perspectives: Lipsky’s theory of street-level bureaucracy; research on moral distress and ethical conflict; and theories of recognition. The empirical material consists of a number of semi-structured interviews and focus groups conducted in 2025 across a number of Italian regions involving 53 individuals. The findings highlight the persistent tension between care and control, showing how constraints on discretion, conflicting mandates, and limited recognition contribute to experiences of moral distress, while also prompting situated strategies to preserve spaces for care, advocacy, and agency. The fieldwork shows the presence of “trespassing practices”, which refers to actions that emerge as attempts to reclaim discretionary space, alleviate ethical tensions, and maintain the supportive aspects of social work practice, while also functioning as forms of coping and situated agency.

Work–life balance has become an increasingly important field of research and policy intervention, reflecting profound changes in employment, family life, gender relations and care arrangements [...]

Informal volunteering is widely recognised as an important form of civic participation and community support, yet it remains one of the most difficult dimensions of volunteering to define and measure. Existing frameworks typically describe informal volunteering as unpaid help provided directly to individuals outside formal organisational structures. However, growing evidence suggests that many activities classified by researchers as volunteering are not understood by participants in those terms. Drawing on relational sociology, this paper examines how informal volunteering is understood, classified, and measured through a multimethod study comprising a Delphi panel of volunteering experts (n = 7), a survey (n = 94), and cognitive interviews (n = 8). Originally undertaken to inform the development of volunteering questions for the Irish Census, the study generated broader insights into the conceptual boundaries of informal volunteering. Findings reveal a consistent pattern across all three stages of the research. Experts anticipated difficulties in defining and measuring informal volunteering, survey respondents demonstrated substantial uncertainty when classifying informal volunteering activities, and interview participants frequently distinguished volunteering from helping neighbours, friends, and community members. While activities undertaken through organisations were widely recognised as volunteering, activities embedded within everyday social relationships were more often understood through the languages of care, reciprocity, neighbourliness, friendship, and community support. The paper argues that informal volunteering functions as a relational social practice rather than as a clearly bounded category of volunteer work. Difficulties in measuring informal volunteering therefore reflect not only methodological limitations but also a mismatch between institutional definitions and everyday understandings of participation and support. The study contributes to debates on the conceptualisation of informal volunteering, advances relational approaches to civic participation, and suggests that challenges in measurement are conceptual before they are methodological.