Skip to main content

Luxury Chairs and Pizzas: The Production of Social Spaces and Class

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Digital Entrepreneurship, Gender and Intersectionality

Part of the book series: Dynamics of Virtual Work ((DVW))

  • 411 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter contributes to our understanding of the social construction of the spaces used by virtual workers and digital entrepreneurs in Taiwan. It examines co-working and co-creation spaces. Through ethnography and interviews, the current research examines three co-working spaces in Taiwan and compares them with spaces in Hong Kong. The discussion combines Henri Lefebvre’s conceptualisation of the social production of space, Michel de Certeau’s notion of spatial stories, and seminal writings on conspicuous consumption and class in order to explain these work spaces. The places of work for these nascent entrepreneurs and co-workers can be explained through the articulation of social and cultural capital that marks the boundaries around an imagined community of the young, creative middle class. It concludes that there are two types of spatial arrangements: the spatial connection between traditional high-tech industries and the startup ecosystem, and co-working spaces as places of cultural and social networks.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Bourdieu, Pierre. “The Aristocracy of Culture.” Media, Culture & Society 2 (1980): 225–54.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, Pierre. “The Forms of Capital.” In Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, edited by John G. Richardson, 241–58. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1986.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brookfield, Jonathan. “The Network Structure of Big Business in Taiwan.” Asia Pacific Journal of Management 7, no. 2 (2010): 257–79.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Castells, Manuel. The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business and Society. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • de Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.

    Google Scholar 

  • Drucker, Peter. Management Challenges for the 21st Century. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann, 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ernst, Dieter. “Small Firms Competing in Globalized High-Tech Industries: The Co-evolution of Domestic and International Knowledge Linkages in Taiwan’s Computer Industry.” In The Global Challenge to Industrial Districts: Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in Italy and Taiwan, edited by Paolo Guerrieri, Simona Iammarino, and Carlo Pietrobelli, 95–130. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  • Florida, Richard. “The Economic Geography of Talent.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 92, no. 4 (2002a): 743–55.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Florida, Richard. The Rise of the Creative Class. New York: Basic Books, 2002b.

    Google Scholar 

  • Florida, Richard. “Cities and the Creative Class.” City & Community 2, no. 1 (2003): 3–19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gottdiener, Mark. The Social Production of Urban Space. Austin: University of Texas, 1985.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gregg, Melissa. “Thanks for the Ad(d): Neoliberalism’s Compulsory Friendship.” Talk given at Goldsmiths College, University of London, July 2006. https://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/politicalfeeling/files/2007/09/thanks4adddraft.pdf.

  • Kourtit, Karima, and Peter Nijkamp. “Impact of Cultural ‘Ambiance’ on the Spatial Distribution of Creative Professions: A Modeling Study on the Netherlands.” International Regional Science Review 41, no. 1 (2018): 103–28.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lawton, Philip, Enda Murphy, and Declan Redmond. “Residential Preferences of the ‘Creative Class’?” Cities 31 (2013): 47–56.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lefebvre, Henri, and Donald Nicholson-Smith. The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leung, Wing-Fai, Rosalind Gill, and Keith Randle. “Getting in, Getting on, Getting Out? Women as Career Scramblers in the UK Film and Television Industries.” Sociological Review 63, no. SI (2015): 50–65.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leung, Wing-Fai. “The Strengths of Close Ties: Taiwanese Online Entrepreneurship, Gender and Intersectionality.” Information, Communication & Society 19, no. 8 (2016): 1046–60.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lindtner, Silvia. “Hackerspaces and the Internet of Things in China: How Makers Are Reinventing Industrial Production, Innovation, and the Self.” China Information 28, no. 2 (2014): 145–67.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lindtner, Silvia. “Hacking with Chinese Characteristics: The Promises of the Maker Movement Against China’s Manufacturing Culture.” Science, Technology & Human Values 40, no. 5 (2015): 1–26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moriset, Bruno. “Building New Places of the Creative Economy. The Rise of Coworking Spaces.” Paper presented at 2nd Geography of Innovation International Conference. Utrecht University, the Netherlands, January 23–25, 2014. https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00914075/document.

  • Murphy, Enda, Linda Fox-Rogers, and Declan Redmond. “Location Decision Making of “Creative” Industries: The Media and Computer Game Sectors in Dublin, Ireland.” Growth and Change 46, no. 1 (2015): 97–113.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Neff, Gina. Venture Labor: Work and the Burden of Risk in Innovative Industries. Boston, MA: MIT, 2012.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Oakey, Raymond P. “Open Innovation and Its Relevance to Industrial Research and Development: The Case of High-Technology Small Firms.” International Small Business Journal 31, no. 3 (2013): 319–36.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pratt, Andy C. “New Media, the New Economy and New Spaces.” Geoforum 31, no. 4 (2000): 425–36.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Randle, Keith, Wing-Fai Leung, and Juno Kurian. Creating Difference: Overcoming Barriers to Diversity in UK Film & Television Employment. Hatfield, Herts: University of Hertfordshire, 2007.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sabel, Charles, and AnnaLee Saxenian. “Roepke Lecture in Economic Geography Venture Capital in the ‘Periphery’: The New Argonauts, Global Search, and Local Institution Building.” Economic Geography 84, no. 4 (2008): 379–94.

    Google Scholar 

  • Saxenian, A. “Transnational Communities and the Evolution of Global Production Networks: The Cases of Taiwan, China and India.” Industry 9, no. 3 (2002): 183–202.

    Google Scholar 

  • Saxenian, AnnaLee, and Jinn-yuh Hsu. “The Silicon Valley-Hsinchu Connection: Technical Communities and Industrial Upgrading.” Industrial and Corporate Change 10, no. 4 (2001): 893–921.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schön, Sandra, Martin Ebner, and Swapna Kumar. The Maker Movement. Implications of New Digital Gadgets, Fabrication Tools and Spaces for Creative Learning and Teaching. Barcelona: eLearning Papers, 2014. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263655746_The_Maker_Movement_Implications_of_new_digital_gadgets_fabrication_tools_and_spaces_for_creative_learning_and_teaching.

  • Shih, Chao-Ching, Tom M.Y. Lin, and Pin Luarn. “Fan-Centric Social Media: The Xiaomi Phenomenon in China.” Business Horizons 57, no. 3 (2014): 349–58.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Veblen, Thorstein. Theory of the Leisure Class. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1899.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wittel, A. “Towards a Network Sociality.” Theory Culture & Society 18, no. 6 (2001): 51–76.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhang, Xiaoke, and Richard Whitley. “Changing Macro-Structural Varieties of East Asian Capitalism.” Socio-Economic Review 11, no. 2 (2013): 301–36.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zukin, Sharon. Loft Living: Culture and Capital in Urban Change. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1989.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Wing-Fai Leung .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Leung, WF. (2019). Luxury Chairs and Pizzas: The Production of Social Spaces and Class. In: Digital Entrepreneurship, Gender and Intersectionality. Dynamics of Virtual Work. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97523-8_4

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97523-8_4

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-97522-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-97523-8

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics