2 - “Be more, Together”: Negotiating the Individual in Coliving Community in Viet Nam

Over the past decade, the Vietnamese real estate landscape has undergone a dynamic transformation, marked by the emergence of space-sharing (Space-as-a-Service) startups, most recently the advent of coliving spaces. Branded as “the end of urban loneliness”, coliving operators worldwide promise to offer a living solution as an antidote to the growing disconnect of social relationships, exacerbated by the rise of neoliberal urbanism and digital technological advances. The coliving space model provides the environment and infrastructure to intentionally create communities of young professional urbanites who share values and lifestyles. These communities act as the site where tensions between dichotomies are negotiated: the communal values of the collective versus the focus on the development and care of the self, the care services offered by coliving operators versus the ethics of care practiced through the emotional labour shared among the residents, and the dynamics between public space-sharing versus the individual privacy.

This paper discusses the rise of (Shared-)Space-as-a-Service industry in Viet Nam by presenting an ethnographic account of a coliving space in Ho Chi Minh City. It explores the intricacies of the relationship between community and individuality within these collective residential real estate startups. Against the historical and political backdrop of the Vietnamese collective living experience since the 1960s, I argue that capitalist-backed coliving spaces potentially push the individualisation process in their community-building efforts, as these actors navigate the construction of their individual identities within the coliving setting and pursue their visions of “the good life” in the new Viet Nam.