Spontaneous Volunteering Motivations and Experiences after Disasters: The Case of Turkey Earthquake

In times of extraordinary and unexpected crises such as earthquakes, many different areas of need emerge, and demand arises for the rapid solution of these needs. The speed and capability of organizing major disasters to respond to the demands of all areas of the affected region may exceed the speed and capability of regular civil society organizations or government agencies. At this point, “spontaneous and unprepared” volunteerism, which is not associated with a governmental or civil society organization and proceeds in an unsystematic manner, becomes active. Spontaneous volunteerism is an important force that has the potential to act rapidly and respond to different requirements. However, sometimes-spontaneous volunteers may also turn into factors that do not benefit the disaster area and cause different problems by causing troubles in the processes as they come to the area only as observers.

This study explores the emergence of spontaneous volunteerism during disasters, along with its main motivations and experiences. Field research on the problem area of the study; After the 6 February 2023 earthquake in Kahramanmaraş, it included people (spontaneous volunteers, volunteers affiliated with civil society organizations and public administrators) who attended rescue and other activities in the region. The research method was determined to be qualitative, and 61 people were interviewed. Observation and semi-structured interview techniques were used as data collection techniques. Finally, the qualitative data analysis software Maxqda-2022 was used for comprehensive and in-depth data analysis.