Coworking Spaces

This contributed volume considers the emergence of coworking as centered in labor issues. More specifically, its chapters consider it as a coping mechanism in the worldwide rise of independent modes of work (i.e., self-employment) that leaves more and more workers exposed to precarity as they must organize and manage their own labor. Grounded in this perspective, this volume aims to understand the transformative social and political potentials emerging through coworking as a social and spatial practice. There is a distinct lack of discussion within coworking research on the emancipatory potentials of coworking—and if it is discussed, more cautionary views prevail, highlighting the ambivalence of coworking spaces both as a space of alternative economic practices and as integrated into market economies.

 

The aims of this collection are twofold: First, it aims to make visible the plurality of existing practices around shared resources in coworking and the assemblages of human and non-human actors as agents of change associated with coworking and the re-organization of work and labor power. And second, it aims to develop a more emancipatory narrative for coworking and the role of coworking spaces for workers but also the different spatial contexts in which these spaces are situated. A narrative that does not emphasize entrepreneurship or coworking as the epitome of the ‘neoliberal entrepreneurial self’ as in the dominant interpretations in the current research, but rather one that centers coworking in the creation of meaningful, careful social relationships, supporting empathy and an ethics that recognizes mutual interdependencies and builds a foundation for social change. So, it is about alternative narratives, emancipation politics and the wider social role that coworking spaces might play in neighborhoods, cities or beyond because they are crucial contexts for the formation and maintenance of social relations.

 

With this specific direction, this collection aims to bring coworking research into a fruitful dialog with other research fields-such as sociology of work, feminist perspectives on care, alternative and diverse economies, "post-capitalist" transformation, critical geography, positioning coworking within a range of progressive alternatives in the articulation of economic and social relationships.

Dr Janet Merkel is an urban sociologist based at the Institute of Urban and Regional Planning at Technische Universität Berlin where she works on the social and spatial re-organization of independent modes of work. She holds a PhD in urban and regional sociology from Humboldt University Berlin. Her research interest includes creative industries and creative labour, cultural planning, and urban cultural policy. She has hold positions at Berlin’s Social Science Research Center (WZB) and Hertie School of Governance and was working as a Lecturer for Culture and Creative Industries at City, University of London and guest professor for economics of urban and regional development at University of Kassel.

 

Dr Dimitris Pettas is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Urban and Regional Planning, Technische Universität Berlin. He holds a PhD from the National Technical University of Athens (School of Architecture). He has worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Regional Development Institute (Panteion University), the National Technical University of Athens and the Research Centre for the Humanities. He has also been a lecturer in the Social and Solidarity Economy postgraduate programme at the Hellenic Open University. His research interests include the study of: the social production of public space, the development of platform economy and its impact on urban environment, the role of power relations and agency in modes of urban governance, the emergence and broader transformative potentialities of grassroots collaborative and social/ solidarity economy initiatives, the exploration and comparative analysis of epistemological and ontological approaches concerning the production of urban environment and urban life. 

 

Dr. Vasilis Avdikos is associate professor in the Department of Economic and Regional Development in Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences since 2014. He holds a doctorate from the University of Sheffield and a MSc degree from the University of Strathclyde. His research interests lie in the intersection of urban and regional development, and the cultural and creative industries. He has led and coordinated several national and international research projects; currently he is researching the impacts of collaborative workspaces in rural areas (MSCA CORAL-ITN) and the ways commons can offer new and sustainable solutions in GLAMs (GLAMMONS- Horizon Europe). He is the author of two monographs and two other collective volumes and several research papers.