Work, flexibility and coworking: An anthropological study of communal working spaces in Dublin during and after Covid-19 pandemicBabuder, Anuša (Avtor) Kozorog, Miha (Mentor) coworking spacesDublinCovid-19anthropology of placesensory ethnographyCoworking spaces represent a half-way between a completely independent freelance working life and a “standard” corporate office setting, indicating the practice of working alone, but together. Fumbally Exchange, the central coworking space of this research, was founded in 2009, following 2008 recession, which urged many ‘creative workers’ into an entrepreneurial career. Covid-19 lockdowns triggered a question of how has people’s relationship to the coworking space and its community changed after months of being cupped up in their homes and home offices? Since the main reasons for joining a CW spaces for the people I talked to in Dublin were sociality, being around people and secondly potential work connections, it meant that being cut away from those every day connections changed the way people constructed community and experience place at a CW. To study this, I conducted most of the fieldwork in Dublin’s Fumbally Exchange, a non-profit coworking space, which has been running since 2009, with two changes in their location throughout the city (in 2014 and 2019). It has been shown before (de Peuter et al. 2017) that CWs exists in a tension of simultaneously promoting precarity working conditions and countering their effects, on one hand naturalising the ‘gig economy' and on the other affirming the feelings of community through events, everyday small talk and helping other members. At Fumbally, a significant part of the feeling of belonging was also place attachment, which was impacted by two relocations (in 2014 and 2019). While the organization did not tie its identity to any of the three locations they had, feeling of attachments still developed among regular members, due to the presence of other people, visual and sound elements (like plants or the hum of the office), location in the city centre and their participation in creating a sense of place in each location. In the concluding thoughts it can be seen how the role of ethnographic work proved the importance of sense of place and place attachment for members’ experience of community and belonging at Fumbally, even when the common narrative was that the community itself is untied to its place and independent of its former and current locations. The “houses” of Fumbally acted as a medium and facilitator for everyday connections, small talk and events, which allowed people to create deeper bonds with each other and consequently place attachments formed or deepened.20242024-07-06 07:46:05Magistrsko delo/naloga159332VisID: 543398sl