Voluntary action scholars and disaster researchers have paid little atten
tion to the permanent volunteer in the context of large-scale social crisis.
In contrast, there have been many studies on particular types of volun
teering behavior in the everyday setting, such as bystander intervention,
while many other studies have explored the personality profile and orga
nizational settings of full-time career emergency workers, such as police,
ambulance, and fire officers. The comparative lack of systematic inquiry
on disaster volunteerism has implications for countries like Australia,
where the disaster management system relies heavily on a trained and
readily available unpaid citizenry. In particular, little practical material is
currently available that deals with the management of permanent volun
teers as a specific emergency worker group. In an effort to remedy this
imbalance and encourage further study of this group, this article explores
the characteristics of permanent disaster volunteerism and their location
within the existing knowledge framework of volunteerism and voluntary
organizations.
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