Co-working communities: sustainability citizenship at work

Abstract

The spaces of work that built the dominant modernity in Westernised societies of the Global North in the twentieth century are changing (Dale and Burrell 2008). Many once-foundational jobs have been resigned to the past, are in short supply or have been dispatched offshore. In rhetoric, if not reality, a new spirit of entrepreneurialism has emerged to fill the void. The current political dictum of ‘doing more with less’ posits the notion that communities of citizens, not institutions, will now work to create the sustainable solutions we need for the future (Sennett 2012). Without the rigidity and security of mass-industrial work, sustainability citizenship in urban economies of advanced capitalism may be expected to take on collective entrepreneurial forms – constructing new organisations around sustainability ideals that challenge mainstream state and private institutional dominance and are directed towards alternative futures.