Work, flexibility and coworking: An anthropological study of communal working spaces in Dublin during and after Covid-19 pandemic

Babuder, Anuša (author), Kozorog, Miha (mentor)

Coworking 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.

• Language: English
• Keywords: coworking spaces, Dublin, Covid-19, anthropology of place, sensory ethnography
• Work type: Master's thesis/paper
• Organization: FF - Faculty of Arts
• Year: 2024
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-159332
• Publication date in RUL: 06.07.2024

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Title: Delo, fleksibilnost in coworking: Antropološka raziskava skupnih delovnih prostorov v Dublinu med in po Covid-19 pandemiji

Abstract

Coworking prostori predstavljajo vmesno pot med samostojnim podjetniškim življenjem in »standardnim« pisarniškim okoljem, kjer ljudje delajo sami, a skupaj. Exchange, osrednji coworking prostor te raziskave, je bil ustanovljen leta 2009 po finančni krizi leta 2008, ki je številne 'kreativne delavce' spodbudila k podjetniški karieri. Pandemija Covid-19 je sprožila vprašanje, kako se je odnos ljudi do coworking prostorov in skupnosti v njih spremenil po mesecih zaprtja v njihovih domovih in domačih pisarnah? Ker so bili glavni razlogi za pridružitev prostorom CW za ljudi, s katerimi sem se pogovarjal v Dublinu, družabnost, delo ob drugih in šele nato potencialne službene vezi, je to pomenilo, da je prekinitev teh vsakodnevnih stikov, spremenilo način, na katerega so ljudje ustvarjali skupnost in prostor v CW-jih. Da bi to lahko raziskala, sem večino terenskega dela opravila v dublinskem Fumbally Exchange, neprofitnem coworking prostoru, ki deluje od leta 2009, ki se je od takrat tudi dvakrat preselil (leta 2014 in 2019). De Peuter et al. (2017) so že izpostavili, da CWs obstaja v napetosti med spodbujanjem negotovih delovnih pogojev (prekarnosti) in zoperstavljanja proti negativnim učinkom le tega. CW-ji po eni strani naturalizirajo prekarno delo, po drugi pa ustvarjajo občutek skupnosti, ki nasprotuje negativnim posledicam nove ekonomije, skozi dogodke, vsakodnevne pogovore in medsebojno pomočjo. Pri Fumbally-u je pomemben del občutka pripadnosti predstavljala tudi navezanost na kraj, na kar so na svoj način vplivale dve selitvi (leta 2014 in 2019) in Covi-19 pandemija. Čeprav organizacija svoje identitete ni vezala na nobeno od treh lokacij, se je med rednimi člani še vedno razvil občutek navezanosti zaradi prisotnosti drugih ljudi, vizualnih in zvočnih elementov (kot so rastline ali šum v pisarni), lokacije v središču mesta in njihovo sodelovanje pri ustvarjanju občutka mesta na vsaki lokaciji. Na koncu pokažem, kako je vloga etnografskega dela dokazala pomen občutenja kraja in navezanosti na kraj za izkušnjo skupnosti in pripadnosti članov v Fumbally-u, tudi ko je bilo glavno prepričanje, da je identiteta organizacije in skupnosti neodvisna od trenutne lokacije. »Hiše« Fumbally-a so delovale kot medij vsakodnevnih povezav, klepetov in dogodkov, ki so ljudem omogočali ustvarjanje globljih medsebojnih vezi in posledično ustvarjanje ali poglabljanje občutka skupnosti.

• Keywords: coworking prostori, Dublin, Covid-19, antropologija prostora, senzorična etnografija