Abstract
The paper demonstrates how co-working spaces, with their openness ideologies that are not only manifested in sharing space, but also sharing knowledge and generating access to nonhierarchical productive opportunities, are being subsumed into reinforcing neoliberal exclusiveness. The paper questions the openness of co-working spaces that reconciled with the dominant ideologies of 2011 Cairo, setting the stage to the mushrooming of co-working spaces inside Cairo’s apartment buildings as zones of relative freedom. Through space-time mapping of the emergence of co-working spaces in Cairo, in addition to interviews with co-workers, co-founders, and managers of co-working spaces, the spatial appropriation and accessibility of co-working spaces are demonstrated. Using content analysis and space syntax analysis, the study differentiates between two paradigmatic shifts in the spatial appropriation of co-working spaces—from democratizing digital infrastructure in the aftermath of 2011, to being subsumed by technological capitalist ventures by the end of 2015 into a closed paradigm, they originally emerged to defy—and compares between the spatial accessibility, visual accessibility, and social diversity of the two waves of co-working spaces. Using Cairo’s co-working spaces as a case study, this paper shows how ideologies of openness “neutral” as they may seem, can serve to legitimize exclusiveness, emphasizing how ideas—as men—can be socially located, and serve to legitimize a particular social situation.
Highlights
As the economy shifted from industrial manufacturing to service and knowledge sectors, corporates started articulating their “core purpose” as an organizational and motivational principle to stand out in the market [1]
Co-working spaces—representing a flexible work style enabled by information and communication technologies—have been offering just open work environments, with low physical barriers [2, 3], and an open work culture that fosters collaborative work, and sharing of knowledge between entrepreneurs [2, 4, 5, 38, 39], giving a sense of meaning through helping out [6]
By the collaborative consumption/sharing of apartments in political temporality of Tahrir square post 2011—which expanded youth imaginative horizons, and empowered them to utilize the city at its full potential—youth were able to hack into the city and modify it, “access” these new urban commons, avoid high real estate investments, generate nonhierarchical productive opportunities, and find an alternative to the upscale coffee shops that provided young upper middle class professionals with new forms of self-presentation from mid 1990s onwards and played a great role in shaping Cairo’s up-to-date exclusive modernity [11]
Summary
As the economy shifted from industrial manufacturing to service and knowledge sectors, corporates started articulating their “core purpose” as an organizational and motivational principle to stand out in the market [1]. Co-working spaces—representing a flexible work style enabled by information and communication technologies—have been offering just open work environments, with low physical barriers [2, 3], and an open work culture that fosters collaborative work, and sharing of knowledge between entrepreneurs [2, 4, 5, 38, 39], giving a sense of meaning through helping out [6]. The open work culture of co-working spaces fosters a language of autonomy and belonging at the same time [1]. It combines “independent” professionals, giving strength and definition to the individual’s sense of independence, and providing freedom and flexibility in terms of time/location/communication, within the structure of a coworking community, even if some people do not collaborate at times [5]
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