Introduction to the special issue: Towards a long-term perspective of self-managed collaborative housing initiatives

Beyond wishful thinking: a FPE perspective on commoning, care, and the promise of co-housing

“…We argue that feminist insights reveal essential omissions in dominant understandings of commoning and we provide a theoretically and empirically informed response that is relevant to both co-housing and commons scholars. Drawing on Tummers' extensive research on co-housing in Europe (Tummers 2015(Tummers , 2016(Tummers , 2017 and MacGregor's scholarship on feminist green politics (MacGregor 2014(MacGregor , 2017, and our observations from fieldwork we conducted together at four co-housing projects in the Netherlands and the UK, we cast new light on sharing practices at the level of the collectivized household. Our findings suggest that co-housing as a practice of commoning falls short of its transformative potential if it does not address the politics of social reproduction.…”

Mapping trajectories of becoming: four forms of behaviour in co-housing initiatives

“…A distinctive feature of co-housing initiatives is that groups of residents collectively develop their own living environments based upon their own initiative (Tummers, 2015a). But, despite the emphasis many researchers put on the autonomy, self-motivation, self-management and bottom-up aspects of co-housing (Ruiu, 2014;Chiodelli, 2015;Tummers, 2015b), co-housing projects cannot materialise without the collaboration of public authorities and other stakeholders such as landowners or financial institutions.…”

“…Some authors discuss the benefits of co-housing communities for societies, and whether or not public authorities should facilitate, promote and support them -and, if so, by what measures (Chiodelli and Baglione, 2014;Chiodelli, 2015;Droste, 2015). Furthermore, in order to understand the role of planning in these processes more attention should be given to the role public authorities, planning criteria and planning processes play in co-housing (Tummers, 2015a;2015b). But Tummers has framed planning mostly as a contextual feature: guiding principles, national policies, historical and cultural aspects, institutions (national, regional, local), legal frameworks (national, regional, local) and land-use and other functional regulators that play a beneficial or obstructive role in co-housing initiatives (Tummers, 2015b).…”

“…Moreover, groups are often still changing while negotiations and interactions are taking place (Tummers, 2011;Droste, 2015). As such, co-housing projects are always tailor-made, specific and situational (Boelens and Visser, 2011;Jarvis, 2015;Tummers, 2015a;2015b). Some authors discuss the benefits of co-housing communities for societies, and whether or not public authorities should facilitate, promote and support them -and, if so, by what measures (Chiodelli and Baglione, 2014;Chiodelli, 2015;Droste, 2015).…”

“…Framing co-housing as private residential communities, attention has been paid to the institutional, organisational and communal features of already existing groups (Williams, 2005;Vestbro, 2010;Chiodelli and Baglione, 2014;Chiodelli, 2015;Jarvis, 2015). By contrast, limited Beitske Boonstra 276 attention has been given to the way in which a community grows over time, and the interactions with other stakeholders, before the actual co-housing project is established.A distinctive feature of co-housing initiatives is that groups of residents collectively develop their own living environments based upon their own initiative (Tummers, 2015a). But, despite the emphasis many researchers put on the autonomy, self-motivation, self-management and bottom-up aspects of co-housing (Ruiu, 2014;Chiodelli, 2015;Tummers, 2015b), co-housing projects cannot materialise without the collaboration of public authorities and other stakeholders such as landowners or financial institutions.…”