What we share: covert commoning in Swedish coliving?

• Sharing housing with non-family members has increasingly become a way to reduce costs while pursuing an autonomous yet communal living throughout the life course. During the past decade, a new form of shared housing has entered the Swedish real estate market: coliving. Like shared housing generally, some of the aims of coliving are to help address the housing shortage, decrease loneliness, increase the sustainability of housing and provide flexible housing for an increasingly mobile population. Based on the design of sixteen coliving hubs and interviews with thirteen coliving developers and operators as well as fourteen colivers, we show how the visions and experiences of developers and residents are mutually constitutive, but also at odds with each other. We argue first that even though coliving is set in a discourse of commoning as an alternative form of exchange, production and living, developers decrease the size of shared spaces and reduce options for residents to manage their homes and participate in choosing whom to live with. As a consequence, colivers feel the need to develop strategies to manage privacy and practice self-care, since having emotional balance becomes a prerequisite for an intensely shared life. Furthermore, the emotional labour of colivers revolves primarily around socializing with others similar to themselves while services, such as cleaning and maintenance, are provided by staff. In conclusion, we define commoning practices in coliving as a form of covert commoning built on contradictions between discourse and lived experience.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Care

Coliving

Commoning

Shared Housing

Publication and Content Type

art (subject category)

ref (subject category)