Towards a spatial understanding of identity play: coworking spaces as playgrounds for identity

ABSTRACT Based on thirty interviews conducted in ten coworking spaces in Amsterdam and Paris, we ask whether and how members of coworking spaces engage in identity play, and what mechanisms related to space seem to enable such identity play. We identify four types of spatial mechanisms members and hosts of coworking spaces claim to create or engage in, and show how these relate to experimentation with professional identity. In so doing, we highlight possible material and spatial aspects of identity play. This paper contributes to the literature on identity play by drawing attention to the physicality and constitutive nature of the holding spaces necessary for identity play, and to research on coworking spaces by drawing attention to their possible identity effects.