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

Abstract

In order learn about planning in a world increasingly characterised by resource interdependencies and a plurality of governing agencies, this paper follows the processes of becoming for two co-housing initiatives. Self-organisation -understood as the emergence of actor-networks -is the leading theoretical concept, complemented by translation from actor-network theory and individuation from assemblage theory. This theoretical hybrid distinguishes four forms of behaviour (decoding, coding, expansion and contraction) that are used to analyse the dynamics of becoming in the two cases. As a result, information is revealed on the conditions that give rise to co-housing initiatives, and the dynamic interactions between planning authorities, (groups of) initiators and other stakeholders that gave shape to the initiatives. Differences between these actors become blurred, as both try to create meaning and reasoning in a non-linear, complex and uncertain world. The paper concludes with a view on planning as an act of adaptive navigation, an act equally performed by professionals working for planning authorities and a case initiator.Keywords: assemblages, co-housing, complexity, self-organisation, spatial planning, translation IntroductionDiversification, decentralisation, dispersion of power and increasing resource interdependency in society (e.g. land, property, knowledge, competences, capital, authority) are posing serious challenges to contemporary spatial planners (Booher and Innes, 2001, 3;de Roo, 2010; Van Wezemael, 2012, 94; Zuidema, 2012, 2). Various planning theorists argue that this societal complexity asks for planning to acknowledge non-linearity, interrelatedness, diversity and multiplicity (Hillier, 2007;Van Wezemael, 2010;Zuidema, 2012). They turn to variegated complexity and post-structuralist theories (such as actor-network theory and assemblage theory), and elaborate on spatial planning as being entangled within a plurality of agencies, including but not limited to those of the state (Hillier, 2007: 10;Boelens, 2009;Boelens and de Roo, 2014).A manifestation of such hybrid planning networks, characterised by resource interdependency, can be found in the practice of co-housing. 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 c...

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