The Changing Shape of Concern: Volunteers Caring for Immigrants in Detention

Abstract

This dissertation examines the evolution of the Shape of Concern, “a pattern of attention and emotional response to others based on the attributes and situations of those others”. Even committed universalists must prioritize how they allocate their limited ability to provide care, and their choices provide information about their shape of concern. This qualitative study based on two years of participant observation and interviews with 64 volunteers who provide care for immigrants in detention in the Western and Southern United States has three key findings. First, rather than being motivated by personal similarity between the carer and the cared-for, motivation is often found in the parallels of prior relationships between the carer and others. Second, almost all of the U.S. born volunteers had lived abroad, which changed the way they saw themselves as Americans and heightened their attention to immigrants. Third, personal choices to join and leave religious and volunteer organizations reflected a desire to act on pre-existing values and led to subsequent transformation in the shape of concern. This study confirms key tenets of the Life Course Framework: Linked Lives, Time and Place of experience, and Personal Agency all shape the self.