Working papers 2009

Title: Don’t try this at Home: Mapping the Spatial Implications of Home-based Teleworking

Authors: Robert Wapshott and Oliver Mallett

Abstract: In this paper we explore the ongoing contestation of space that accompanies decisions to work from home. Using a Lefebvrian approach to space, and specifically Lefebvre’s discussion of domination and appropriation, we re-examine published accounts of home-based teleworking; our analysis focuses on how the ongoing contestation of space is enacted. Recent studies concerning telework within the home have tended only to acknowledge spatial implications in relation to other considerations such as the temporal. Alternatively, the re-association of paid work and the home have been treated as unproblematic. In contrast to these studies, our structured exploration of home-based teleworking reveals the complex spatial implications of decisions to undertake such work. Our paper outlines the concepts of mimesis, boundary work, gatekeepers, afterlife, re-appropriation and la perruque to build an understanding of home-based teleworking that is informed by considerations of space and in doing so seeks to enrich discussions of this topic.

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