At the heart of new work practices: A paradoxical approach to silence in a coworking space

The increasingly popular expression 'collaborative economy' seems to imply explicit, visible and ultimately 'noisy' work practices; collaborating requires expressing things, which is a 'noisy' phenomenon in itself. Paradoxically, most contemporary work environments (e.g. open-space oriented or mobile in the context of public spaces) appear to be largely silent and filled with invisible work bubbles. This raises some fundamental questions around the unfolding, emergence and temporality of collaborative practices. In other words, where and when do these expected collaborative practices occur? This research note suggests that new work practices wrap collaboration in silence itself and in alternations of silence. It purports that silence is far from being the mere opposite of noise and offers a critical perspective on silence and noise at work as part of a new managerial practice. We use the case of a French coworking space to illustrate our argument.