Bringing place into meaningful work: The case of location-independent work

Prior research on meaningful work has identified a variety of resources that are available to people at work, including membership, association, and a sense of belonging. However, as digital technologies have made work more location-independent, the ground for meaningful work is shifting. This begs for a closer examination of how the loss of a stable place to work impacts meaningfulness in the context of new work arrangements. Building on the central tenet of humanistic geography that meaningful work always requires a place for its realization, we present a qualitative study of coworking spaces to explore the intertwinement of work, place, and meaningfulness. Putting participants’ experiences and affective attachments at the center of our inquiry, we distinguish two forms of place-involvement: Being in place and doing place. While both are expressions of the existential spatiality of meaningful life and work, ‘being in place’ gives expression to how people bond with places of work affectively and socially to navigate the insecurities associated with location-independent work, while ‘doing place’ includes human practices geared toward creating the spatial conditions in which meaningful encounters and work can flourish. We discuss the implications of our theorization and its contribution to the literature on meaningful work and coworking. The paper concludes by reflecting on the ethical responsibility for meaningful work under conditions of location-independent work.