Book chapter news: co-working spaces and academic activism

The end of the year 2023 is characterised by two book publications, which both include a chapter from me. 

Edited book: Coworking Spaces: Alternative Topologies and Transformative Potentials

The book is edited by Janet Merkel, Dimitris Pettas and Vasilis Avdikos with 15 chapters. Our chapter with Maja Korica is titled “Organisational Decline and the Failure in Alternative Organising: The Case of a Coworking Cooperative”. We start with how much existing research has focused on examining formation and principles of alternative organising – the hopeful auspices of largely hopeful efforts. However, the decline of established organisations, including alternative ones, remains understudied. To address this relative absence, we introduce the results of a longitudinal ethnography of a Finnish co-working space, ‘The Community’’. The chapter explores how its volunteers, managers, and users related to The Community’s gradual decline, and finally its bankruptcy, and what broader lessons we might take from this account. 

This chapter took some time from plans to publishing, so also a lengthy thank you note is appropriate. One text is always a result of group work. Thank you people who granted me access to do fieldwork, my doctoral dissertation opponent Professor Karin Berglund who encouraged me to develop the unpublished essay into a published work, Maja for the intellectual journey, numerous colleagues in various instances (such as Aalto School of Business Management Department, and EGOS and CMS conferences), and the talented book editors and publisher representatives. 

Edited book: At the Frontiers of Everyday Life: New Research in Cramped Spaces

This book is edited by Hande Gülen, Ceyda Sungur, and Adem Yeşilyurt with 12 chapters. My chapter titled “Should I Stay or Should I Go? Academic Tempered Radicalism in the Era of Ecological Crisis” is an account on doing research in the era of ecological crisis. While I study how to get by on a planet where people experience interrelated socio-ecological crises beyond one’s location, I have little answers how to do it myself. The chapter aims to bring together the  burning themes of academic work, ecological crisis, and one’s agency in these. When knowing of multiple crises as an academic, how and why to do research as an engaged scholar in hyper-individualistic and competitive research environments? What kinds of possibilities for collective action are there for engaged scholars within or in the outskirts of academia? My autoethnographic chapter draws from practice theorising, tempered radicalism, engaged scholarship, and the role of academics impacting contemporary phenomena. 

Thank you fantastic book editors! You developed the call for papers during the weird pandemic working environment. There were little or no face-to-face meetings, so at least for me it made perfect sense to collaborate with interesting and inspiring people in various locations, which was the case for this book project as well. This book allowed me to finally bring together ideas that have been haunting me for years. While I would write a different version today, I’m still grateful for this outcome and being part of an insightful volume of texts. 

Gain access

There are lots of interesting chapters in these volumes, so check out the books: 

• Coworking Spaces: Alternative Topologies and Transformative Potentials
• At the Frontiers of Everyday Life: New Research in Cramped Spaces

If it is not possible for you to buy the book(s), you can ask a university library near you to purchase the books and then borrow them. For a pre-print version of my chapter, contact me. 

Happy reading!