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1 The Idea of Service In the emerging literature on service as a distinct social practice and analytic category, Michael Sherraden’s (2001) definition has become the touchstone. Sherraden describes service as ‘an organized period of substantial engagement and contribution to the local, national, or world community, recognized and valued by society, with minimal monetary compensation to the participant’.6 Patel (2003:89) adds that service ‘is shaped by the history and service traditions of a society, its level of development, the way in which it governs itself, organizes its economy and views the role of its citizens and its social institutions in meeting human needs and in promoting democracy’. While the attempt to capture civic service in this way is recent, the idea of service itself is ancient. In a study of the etymology and historical significance of the word in several languages/traditions, Greek, Latin, Japanese, Swahili, Chinese and Sanskrit, it was found that service historically referred to ‘helpful actions of individuals in relation to others’ (Menon, Moore and Sherraden 2002). In these traditions, such actions, even where they manifested in different forms, were not just expressions of self-sacrifice: they were also expressive of loyalty or devotion to the state or to a higher being (ibid.). In contemporary times, service has moved from its conceptualization in terms of individual actions and has come to be seen in terms of ‘societal systems of care and governance’ (ibid.:9), while ways of enacting this have become increasingly formal, institutionalized and cross-cultural. However, the way in which civic service is conceptualized is conditioned by political, ideological, economic, social , as well as cultural, beliefs in different societies (Patel 2003:92). While Sherraden’s definition focuses mainly on formal means of service participation , therefore suffering what is described as ‘bias towards “developed” countries and urban centers’ (Brav, Moore and Sherraden 2002:2), this bias does not limit its utility in understanding national service of the kind that the present Statism, Youth and Civic Imagination 10 work deals with. This is precisely because it is civic service that is neither ‘urban ’ nor practised in a ‘developed’ country. Two other critiques have been made of this definition of service, which we hope to quickly dismiss in the context of this work. This is that since this is the definition of service for which there is compensation, it leaves out the voluntary or compulsory dimension of service. While one group of scholars avers that service that includes compensation of any kind would corrupt the process of service since that would not be pure ‘volunteerism’ (Bandow 1990; Chapman 1990), the other posits that compulsion in service undermines the freedom critical to the proper functioning of a democracy and the free market (Oi 1990). These scholars have been countered by those who argue, in contrast to the first objection, that compensation for work that does not equal market rates does not vitiate civic service. Moreso, in the context of sustained period of national service (say one or two years), where participants – who, largely, have not been previously employed and so have no fall-back fund – take up no other form of employment and perform the service full time, there is no other means of subsistence beyond some monetary compensation. For the other objection, compulsion is a necessary condition for formal national youth service geared towards national reinvention; otherwise, the result is only a few youths who are willing to do this and therefore vitiate the goal of ensuring civic revival in the highest numbers possible. However, laudable as this conception of service, which we happen to share, is, the literature is replete with works that assess service programmes from the departure point of the ‘intentions’ of the programme and a few others that consider service from the point of ‘outcomes’ (Brav, Moore and Sherraden 2002:3). Iyizoba (1982) and Kalu (1987), in their studies of the national youth service (NYSC) programme in Nigeria, approach from the more nuanced (Iyizoba) to less explorative (Kalu) perspectives to examine the outcomes of the programme. However, while concentrating on the benefits, they both overlook the possible harms of service, thus underestimating the negative outcomes of the NYSC. Three major limitations to the idea of civic service, derived from similar developmental policies and programmes, have been advanced (Brav, Moore and Sherraden 2002). Two of these are relevant to this work. The first is elitism. Here, given the greater access that the elite have in determining, against the rule, the state, city...

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