Volunteers in rural Germany who are engaged in refugee support often do not do so in pursuit of a transformative political goal, but instead simply want to help. But what are their expectations of reciprocity? With the theoretical perspective of gift theory and building on qualitative data, I reconstruct dimensions of reciprocity from the narrations of volunteers. It becomes clear that direct reciprocity between volunteers and refugees takes place mainly on the symbolic level. By helping them with everyday tasks, volunteers also try to influence refugees' convictions. The link between charitable helping and influencing refugees' normative orientations carries the risk of disregarding their autonomy. Possibilities for reducing the symbolic inequalities between volunteers and refugees lie in forms of generalized reciprocity. © 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston.

Reciprocity Volunteers Refugees Rural Germany Helping

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