This paper was originally presented at the 'Lifestyle mobilities and digital nomadism' online event organised by Olga Hannonen and Scott Cohen on behalf of the University of Eastern Finland on December 1st, 2022.

By signing up to co-working and co-living spaces, nomads can drop into communities as they move around the world, getting their social needs met whilst still retaining their freedom of movement. But this “community” comes at a cost, literally.

At a broad level, my research is interested in the diverse strategies digital nomads use to balance competing and often contradictory desires and needs: e.g., the desire to live a life of spatial freedom and the need to connect and belong – somewhere, anywhere. These conflictual and oppositional ends place nomads in an existential bind: freedom and mobility at the cost of loneliness and social isolation. In this paper, I want to argue that one way some nomads are resolving this conflict is through purchasing community through co-working and co-living memberships, effectively turning community into something that can be bought, and sold, on the market – in other words, a commodity.

But first, it must be noted that I’m still currently doing my fieldwork, and hence the paper I’m presenting today is very much a work in progress. Nevertheless, in this short paper I will weave together some of my thoughts, ideas and observations into something approaching a cohesive argument. I will begin this paper by illuminating one of digital nomadism’s dark sides, namely, social isolation and loneliness. I’ll then talk about how many co-working and co-living spaces are attempting to address this problem by cultivating a sense of community in their spaces and charging for it – what I term the commodification of community. Finally, I’ll then move on to discussing how some nomads here in Chiang Mai, Thailand, use these spaces, at a cost, to satisfy their social needs, whilst still holding onto their spatial freedom.

In a radical break with the Western-normative prescription of a settled existence, digital nomads engage in transnational mobility practices through various geographical and temporal dimensions in pursuit of personal fulfilment and meaning. And yet, this spatial freedom, hypermobility and search for a better quality of life often comes at the cost of social isolation and disconnection. Indeed, there is an epidemic of loneliness in the digital nomad community that is often hidden behind the rosy veil of social media representations. But like any lifestyle, digital nomadism is a life of gain and loss, of sacrifice and negotiation. Social connection and the search for community, in particular, are constant struggles for many of the nomads I’ve interviewed here in Chiang Mai, and it has also featured as a pain point in my own decade-long experience in this space. For many nomads I’ve spoken to, loneliness and social isolation are the main reasons people give up the lifestyle. The search for community and connection through any means necessary is vital, therefore, not only for personal well-being but also for the long-term viability of digital nomadism. 

Initial insights from the field illuminate a range of strategies nomads use to resolve the tension between freedom and belonging – some free, others, at a cost. In fact, whilst many (if not most) nomads drop into global networks of like-minded, cosmopolitan communities and attend various social events to meet people, others are turning to the market. Predictably, as greater recognition of the lifestyle’s potential for loneliness enters mainstream awareness through growing coverage in popular media and academic research – especially in the last two years since COVID-19 – savvy entrepreneurs are flocking to the space and offering a number of services, motivated by opportunities to capitalise on this growing market by attempting to provide, or at least mediate, this social fix.

For example, in order to attract nomads and sign them up as paying members, many co-working and co living companies actively cultivate a sense of community within their spaces. Oftentimes, this sense of community is promoted front and centre of their marketing efforts, with the promise of social connection and community, nomads are told, included in the price of membership along with fast Wi-Fi, comfortable chairs and good coffee, of course. However, by attempting to meet this social need at a cost, co-working and co-living spaces effectively commodify community and turn it into something that can be bought and sold (for a profit) on the market. Instead of criticising this reification of community and the reduction of human sociality to an economic transaction, however, this paper is primarily descriptive, arguing that the purchasing of community through co-working and co-living memberships is a strategy some nomads use to resolve the tensions between freedom and autonomy, on the one hand, and the simultaneous yearning for community and belonging on the other. By signing up to co-working and co-living spaces, nomads can drop into communities as they move around the world, getting their social needs met whilst still retaining their freedom of movement.

Conceptually, this paper draws from Marx’s critical analysis of capitalism. In his insightful critique of the capitalist mode of production, Marx recognised capitalism’s tendency to commodify the social landscape. Crucially, Marx argued that commodification extended to human relationships, too; that social relations under capitalism are relations not between people, in fact, but between commodities. In the context of the digital nomad economy, I argue, the use-value of community is being commodified and its exchange-value incorporated into co-working and co-living memberships. This commodification of community, I argue, is both a sign of the lifestyle’s growing popularisation and of post-industrial capitalism’s impressive ability to sniff out a market. 

But where there’s a market, there’s a need. As sites of socialisation and a meeting point for other nomads, co-working and co-living spaces have become integral elements of the lifestyle for many, opening up channels for social connection – especially for those short on time. For nomads, time in a place is usually measured in months, if not weeks or days, and this spatial transience can present difficulties in finding and cultivating fulfilling social relationships.

The topic of transience is worth touching upon here. At least in the context of social connection and community, nomads draw from competing discourses that position transience simultaneously as both a beacon of hope and of despair. For some nomads, spatial transience is incompatible with fulfilling social connection, whilst for others, it creates the conditions for a kind of “confessional space” free from the baggage of settled society, where intimate relations and revelations grow from the short-lived nature of the interaction. Analogous to the anonymity found in a confessional booth, the brevity of copresence in particular places helps some nomads feel more comfortable in opening up and revealing more about themselves without enduring social repercussions. Indeed, for some digital nomads, the liminal space of travel with the spectre of impermanence forever looming in the background motivates them to invest more time and energy in these interactions. These conditions help nomads forge deep and meaningful connections with other nomads – even within a short space of time – which are then kept alive and sustained through mediated communication platforms like Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

For other nomads, limited time in a place motivates them to join co-working or co-living spaces in an act of instrumental rationality. Instead of spending time trying to meet people at events and local meet-ups, many nomads told me they’d rather pay for a co-working or co-living membership for the convenience of having an instant community to drop into. This community-as-a-service (CasS) or pay-per-community logic is a consumerist response to solving social isolation and hastening the process of connection. Julie from Ireland, for example, joined her co-living space after losing the motivation to form connections with people she’d never see again anyway. Staying in a co-living space required less effort than renting an apartment and meeting nomads in other ways, such as meetups, she said. However, by sharing the same space and seeing the same faces again and again, this socio-spatial familiarity made it more likely she’d talk to them, she told me, if out of nothing else than a felt sense of obligation. Other nomads shared this same sentiment.

Another nomad, Katya from Bulgaria, joined her co-living space because it made meeting people and making friends much easier (and quicker) when in a new place. The time-saving function of these spaces is especially significant for these mobile people. Many nomads simply don’t have the luxury of time to cultivate community and find friends organically and so turn to market-based solutions to fast-track social connections. In the start-up scene, for example, the demands of work can position these spaces as the only way entrepreneurial nomads can get their social needs met.

Much has been written recently on the social impacts of digital nomads on their host communities. From Bali to Mexico City to Lisbon, digital nomads are seen not only as models of the “future of work” but as bearers of transnational gentrification. The fetishization of freedom within the digital nomad gaze has also been rightly criticised on inequitable grounds. Hailing mostly from the global North, nomadic freedom is political freedom, a freedom born from structural privilege. Moreover, this freedom often comes at the cost of freedom for others. By moving to the exotic locales in the global South to be “closer to nature” and satisfy their creative or existential calls, digital nomads drive up rental prices for locals and create traffic jams in the idyllic places they valued in the first place. However, what receives relatively scant attention in both the academic literature and mainstream media is the privileged marginality of these nomads within their elected host societies, which positions them on the outer edges of these local communities. This coupled with the inherent isolation associated with the lifestyle amplified by language and cultural barriers makes it incumbent on nomads to actively seek social connections, whether organically or through the market. 

Indeed, community is fast becoming a commodity in the digital nomad economy. Social and community ties are hard to maintain when you're constantly on the move, and even though modern connectivity has eliminated barriers of geography, the feeling of loneliness seems to be an occupational hazard of the lifestyle. To get their social needs met, many digital nomads turn to co-working and co-living spaces. These spaces provide a sense of community and an opportunity for meaningful connections that aren't easily found on the road, especially for those short on time in a place. But this community comes at a cost. Whilst the penetration of the market into community can be rightly criticised, is has become a nonideal but necessary response to social isolation and loneliness that many nomads, it seems, are willing to pay for, literally.