Unfinished sympathy: on the limitations of sharing as a work practice in community-led coworking
Malte Höfner & Nikos Gatsinos
Abstract: Collaborative workspaces are perceived as places of shared infrastructure
where labour is organised in alternative ways. In our article, we juxtapose current and
previous work and life arrangements of freelancers who had practised community-led
coworking in the medium-sized city of Graz, Austria, asking them to reflect on their
professional trajectories. We show that although community-led coworking initially
provided an environment of resilience for the freelancers, impediments emerged
related to their professional development over time. The latter, we argue, is due to the
limitations of sharing as a work practice performed in community-led coworking
spaces.
Subjects: Economic Geography; Social Geography; Urban Geography; Qualitative Methods;
Work; Sociology of Work & Industry; Urban Sociology; Urban Studies; Urban Sociology –
Urban Studies
Keywords: collaborative workspaces; community-led coworking; freelance trajectories;
precariousness; limitations of sharing; geographies of work; follow-up interviews
