Hot Desks in Cool Places: Coworking Spaces as Post-Digital Industry and Movement

The project addresses the future of digitalized work and its social consequences through a study of coworking spaces (CWS) in Sweden.

CWS refer to shared and digitally connected work-spaces where workers can rent an office or a “hot desk” for a limited time. CWS are a trend in “smart cities” worldwide.

While they claim to challenge neoliberal work regimes by reterritorializing work, often in “cool” urban settings, and offering workers stability, they also reproduce the values they mean to defy.

The project will address three ambiguities of CWS; (1) whether they constitute sites of privilege or exploited precariousness; (2) how the demands for ubiquitous connectivity tie into new trends to disconnect from digital media, and (3) whether CWS contribute to the development of open cities or to social exclusion and gentrification via the "touristification" of work.

First, the researchers will conduct mobile "hot desk" ethnographies at 8-10 CWS.

Second, the researchers will focus on two types of CWS to illuminate the tensions of the coworking trend: “Urban Creators’ Collectives” and “Flexible Business Hubs”.

Four cases will be researched through discourse analysis of promotional material; participant observations of material and semiotic design, media and social practices, and interviews with coworkers concerning their lived experience of CWS.

The findings of the project will contribute to political agendas on labor rights, post-digital lives and the right to the "smart" city.