In the context of the globally and increasingly volatile housing issue, a trend is becoming apparent toward non-profit-oriented and collectivized housing and property models that are organized bottom-up, including new cooperatives, the Mietshäuser Syndikat, limited-equity cooperatives and community land trusts (CLTs) (Horlitz, 2012; Rost, 2014; Balmer and Bernet, 2015; Huron, 2015; Thompson, 2015; Bunce, 2016; Cabré and Andrés, 2017). In part, these housing models have expanded internationally and shown mutual connections (Moore and McKee, 2012; Moore and Mullins, 2013; Lang, 2015). The CLT model has experienced the strongest international expansion (cf. Interreg, 2021). Furthermore, the housing commoners increasingly act on housing policy programs, be it temporarily or in the longer term (Aernouts and Ryckewaert, 2018; Ferreri and Vidal, 2021). The Mietshäuser Syndikat in Germany is a solidarity network of currently 170 socialized, self-managed housing projects. Since its inception in 1992, it has not only grown continuously but has also been involved in housing policy debates, while achieving high-level mass media presence (Vey, 2016) and attracting growing international interest.

Against the background of emerging from a niche existence and establishing an affordable alternative for many, studies on housing commons no longer attend only to the specifics and challenges of individual housing models. Rather, they increasingly focus on collaborations with political decision makers, public institutions, builders, and promotional instruments (Lang, 2015; Mullins, 2018; Mullins and Moore, 2018). The number of empirical studies on (trans-)local mobilization in the field of housing movements, particularly relating to multiscale networks of civil-society actors, is relatively small (Lang et al., 2018, p. 20; Thompson, 2018, p. 85). For example, Moore and Mullins (2013) investigated applied forms of support to facilitate the diffusion of CLTs and self-help housing in the UK, and Moore and McKee (2012) compared variants of the CLT model in various countries. Thompson (2018) explored the historical development of CLTs in Liverpool through mobile urbanism, amongst others. Raynor (2018) investigated the process of assembling an innovative social housing project, and how such innovations may be scaled up or scaled out. And Herrle et al. (2016) addressed the role and complex global networks of community-based organizations in processes of housing for the urban poor. However, with the exception of McFarlane (2009), who analyzed the translocal assemblages of housing movements, the studies have barely focused on the mobility of housing commons and related spatial conditions.

Here, a research gap presents itself with regard to the mobilization of housing commons (including related local and translocal learning and networking processes). Drawing on the example of the Mietshäuser Syndikat and its international network, this paper addresses the question as to how housing commons circulate translocally and what role spatial learning processes and network dynamics play in that regard. Precisely, we ask for the mechanisms, i.e., structures and strategies, that facilitate the mobilization of housing commons and the challenges that become visible. Along the lines of a “spatial grammar of urban learning” (McFarlane, 2011, p. 1), we define the assemblage concept as a paradigm in order to examine the processual generation and mobilization of housing models, practices, and transferring actors. Arguments deriving from the theories of spatiality and power are applied to extrapolate the environments that promote or prevent the materialization of housing commons (cf. Künkel, 2015). In this way, we intend to contribute to identifying the role spatial formations play in mobilizing housing commons.

Tracing back to the squatters' movement in the 1980s and finally established in 1992, the Mietshäuser Syndikat is a cooperative-like amalgamation of initiatives which purchase, self-manage and jointly occupy houses (Balmer and Bernet, 2015). The key premises of the umbrella association include the collectivization of property, affordable rents, life in self-management, and solidarity between ongoing and new projects. Based on these premises, the Syndikat sees itself in terms of housing commons, i.e., as decommodified properties characterized by long-term affordability and set up, organized, and managed by an (ideally) heterogeneous group of commoners under the principles of solidarity and participation (cf. An Architektur, 2010; Aernouts and Ryckewaert, 2018). Various studies have reflected on this characterization (Rost, 2014; Vey, 2016; Barthel, 2020; Card, 2020).

A specifically developed legal construct, which is based on LLCs in Germany, prevents purchased houses within the Syndikat from being recommodified: Every housing project has two legal partners, the house association and the Mietshäuser Syndikat. This shared partnership structure warrants a right of veto to the Mietshäuser Syndikat against the sell-off of the properties, changes of statutes and appropriation of net income (Mietshäuser Syndikat, 2021, p. 10). Besides functioning as supervisory body, the Mietshäuser Syndikat is also the connecting piece that links all housing projects. At the same time, the organizational model guarantees extensive autonomy to the individual housing projects.

In terms of financial feasibility, the model relies on direct credits totaling approx. one-third of the given loan amount—mostly from the personal environments of the initiatives—in order to cover the required equity capital shares and take out loans at reduced rates of interest with a bank or a foundation. Thereby, the model is also accessible to users lacking capital resources and affordable rents become possible.

The solidarity principle of the Mietshäuser Syndikat is based on annually increasing solidarity contributions as a rental component that serves to maintain the stock and support the inception of new projects. Roughly €386,000 of such contributions were accumulated in 2021 (2020: €350,000), most of which merging into capital invested for new projects and increasingly into direct credits for housing projects (Mietshäuser Syndikat, 2021). Yet possibly of greater importance to the maintenance and amplification of the association—following the call to expanding commoning (Stavrides, 2014)—is the project members' solidary transfer of practical knowledge to new initiatives. In most cases, two project consultants, who ideally are in close spatial proximity, mentor new initiatives until the resolution is adopted to participate in the association.

Apart from advisory and coordination tasks, a number of permanent and temporary working committees address specific issues. Many members are involved in political work, including public relations, the organization of and participation in workshops, and similar events. The regional consultings are often active in urban politics. In the course of growing attempts at municipal definancialization (cf. Wijburg, 2020), those structures play a concrete part in local committees in an effort to change the basic conditions, e.g., such that the syndicate model may be considered on equal terms with other building groups and housing cooperatives in concept tendering processes. Such efforts have been successful in various cities.

Currently, 170 housing projects with some 4,550 tenants have been implemented, while 16 initiatives are seeking housing space (January 2022). Some houses function according to the principle of conventional apartment buildings, while others share spaces and everyday life, establish collectivized economy, etc. (Vey, 2016, p. 67). Over the past 30 years, the Syndikat has continuously expanded by new housing projects. Interestingly, an average of 12 new projects has annually been incorporated over the past decade in spite of aggravated conditions. Continuous growth requires lasting organizational adaptations. For example, a committee established in 2017 is able to make specific, defined decisions outside the framework of the meetings in an attempt to increase the ability to react. Moreover, the Syndikat is being regionalized to various extents.

The model is also seen to be permanently adapted in view of aggravated initial conditions, changing needs and basic legal conditions, as well as accumulated expertise within the Mietshäuser Syndikat (cf. Barthel, 2020). Thus, the Syndikat policies are “assembled, disassembled, and reassembled along the way” (McCann and Ward, 2012, p. 43). On the one hand, property and land prices have exponentially increased due to financialization and saturated housing markets, thus making it nearly impossible to purchase land or objects on the free market. On the other hand, a self-critical reflection has been taking place in parts of the Syndikat with regard to produced mechanisms of exclusion associated with the self-governing structures and thus to new members' extended access (Stavrides, 2014; Kip, 2015). Consequently, various modifications, spin-offs, and international subsidiaries have been established. On the national level, these new “parallel structures” include participation in a syndicate for agricultural areas and farms (Ackersyndikat); a foundation established to accept potential endowments and come into inheritances (Syndikatstiftung); and finally regional formats and/or syndicates that try to reduce the requirements in terms of self-organization (Wem gehört die Stadt in Freiburg, Sauriassl Syndikat in Bavaria) (cf. Figure 1).

In addition, the syndicate model is extending into the neighboring European countries, with concrete arrangements varying according to the applicable legal frameworks. Together with German Syndikat members, the Willy^*Fred housing project in Linz, Austria adapted the model to the country's legal space in 2016 and founded the habiTAT umbrella organization (cf. Figure 1). In 2021, the habiTAT network consisted of six projects and several other initiatives, in addition to two farm collectives (rural housing and agricultural projects). Following many years of preparation—and triggered by the implementation of an initial housing project, as in Austria—the Vrijcoop association was founded in the Netherlands in 2018, which currently includes three housing projects and other initiatives. Le Clip, the French umbrella organization, currently manages four projects. Sdílené domy (shared houses), a Czech umbrella, is organized as a cooperative and has recently bought its initial housing project in Prague. Furthermore, there are close contacts with young, independent coalitions, e.g., Sotrac (in Barcelona) and the umbrella cooperative Sostre Civic in Spain, and the appeal fund Antidote in France. Activists from these and other countries founded the “Commoning Spaces Network” in 2018, which considers itself as an international support network for the promotion of property, self-organization, and solidarity. In addition, the associations are locally and regionally involved in other networks. For example, Sdílené domy, is a member of the young MOBA Housing SCE, which connects young cooperatives in Eastern Europe and is supported by international NGOs such as urbamonde. Various other interested European initiatives, e.g., in Italy, Greece, or Eastern European countries, have not yet succeeded in establishing projects.

Recent research on social movements within human geography has emphasized the relevance of all spatialities—including scales, networks, places, territories, and mobilities—as opposed to a focus on individual spatialities and the dichotomy of relational and territorial notions, as exemplified in the pioneering work by Leitner et al. (2008). This applies to both structuralist concepts of spatiality and poststructuralist debates with reference to the assemblage approach (cf. Miller, 2013). For some time, efforts have also been made to redefine the network concept. Instead of seeing networks as single entities, Cumbers et al. (2008) proposed to consider a network as federation of cells (cf. Ettlinger and Bosco, 2004). In this sense, networks are produced as (open) interaction processes between actors, events, and actions (cf. Harvey, 1996). In turn, networking spaces are to be less conceived of as closed networks but rather as meeting places where new relations and spatial identities develop (cf. Massey, 1991).

As a young paradigm emerging from the relational turn in geography, the assemblage approach describes the concurrence of various units into loose temporary orders (Legg, 2009). Moreover, assemblage lays the focus on the materiality, emergence, and historical contingency of socio-spatial orders (De Landa, 2016). Thus, this approach emphasizes processes, relations, and development. As opposed to individual concepts of spatiality, the approach makes it possible to embed the external and revoke delimitations between binarities of spatialities. In this way, McFarlane (2009, p. 566) considered “translocal assemblage” in terms of a relational analytic that is open to multiple spatial imaginaries and practices. With this concept, he also referred to the “blurring of scalar distinction” in the production of assemblages in an attempt to avoid the artificial separation of spatialities (McFarlane, 2011, p. 30). The assemblage approach thus assists in dissolving delimitations that involve the risk of blinding out important aspects and in doing justice to the complexity and dynamics of social movements (McFarlane, 2009; see also Davies, 2012). The present paper conceives of assemblage as a paradigm of urban geographies and/or as a “spatial grammar of urban learning” (McFarlane, 2011, p. 9).

For the empirical analysis, we incorporate spatiality-related remarks (Leitner et al., 2008; Nicholls, 2009) as well as the core elements of McFarlane (2011) learning assemblage approach, which links aspects of transfer assemblage thinking with debates about learning and conceives of assemblages as power-guided resources. In so doing, we intend to identify the key mechanisms and disclose unequal power, resource, and knowledge relations associated with the spatial circulation of housing commons.

Social movement scholars point out to basically four key mechanisms or so-called “grassrooting vectors” in terms of the production of networks (Routledge, 2003; Della Porta, 2005; Nicholls, 2009; Levkoe, 2015). According to Cumbers and colleagues, grassrooting vectors “work to intervene in the work of translation by which networks are formed and developed, acting to further the process of communication, information sharing and interaction within grassroots communities” (Cumbers et al., 2008, 96). First, key actors play an important role for the network production. As mobile activators, brokers, (discoursive) strategists, and advocates, they support housing policy matters and the mobility of housing commons on various scales (Nicholls, 2009; Routledge et al., 2013). In the case of global justice networks, Routledge et al. (2013) argued that so-called imagineers are of key importance to the cultural translation of global issues into place-based and lived everyday experiences. Second, according to various studies, physical meeting places, such as gatherings, social events, project consultations, and workshops, additionally serve as grassrooting vectors (Nicholls, 2009; Routledge et al., 2013). These places invigorate communication and interpersonal relationships and affect collective identities. Third, virtual meeting places, including communication platforms, social media, online gatherings, and e-mail distribution lists, serve to disseminate and obtain information, exchange views, and to maintain relationships marked by fragility. Fourth and finally, materialities, especially toolkits such as financing plans and brochures dispose of different scalar functions (cf. McCann and Ward, 2012; Levkoe, 2015).

These four key mechanisms are not only significant in network relationships, but also as vehicles mobilizing spatial knowledge transfer. Due to its process character, McFarlane's (2011) learning assemblage approach focuses on learning instead of knowledge. Correspondingly, spatial learning is conceived to be conditioned by historical actualities and potential possibilities, to be effected by means of action, performance and events, and to be socio-spatially structured, hierarchized and narrativized. “Translocal learning assemblages are structured through various forms of power relation and resource and information control” (McFarlane, 2009, p. 565). In this connection, McFarlane (2009) refers to Allen's (2003) concept of power, which works with various terms (domination, authority, manipulation, and seduction) that are relevant on various scales and become effective in parallel. For example, these terms codetermine access to the group of key actors (see also Cumbers et al., 2008, p. 188).

McFarlane's approach further distinguishes between three interwoven dimensions. Referring to Latour (2005), learning (and thus, the mobilization of organizational models such as the Mietshäuser Syndikat) first requires knowledge to be translated. Latour developed the term as an explicitly critical alternative to the “diffusionist storymaking” (Jacobs, 2012, p. 418) of relatively stable things. “Translation brings into view not only the work required for a thing to reach one point from another, but also the multiplicity of add-ons that contribute, often in unpredictable and varying ways, to transportation, arrival, adoption and (something current urban policy mobility studies are entirely blind to) non-arrival and non-adoption” (Jacobs, 2012, p. 418; see also Künkel, 2015). The moment of traveling as the product of actors who operate in and through distributions with spaces and objects is in the focus of this process. Essentially, the circulating formats outlined in the context of the key mechanisms provide the basis. In this way, ideas and implementation tactics, frames, modes of organization, identities and communication strategies are mobilized (Fominaya, 2014). Second, the translations are to be coordinated by means of certain tools in order to manage complexity and facilitate adaptations. According to Latour (1999, cited in McFarlane, 2011, p. 20), the tools assume the function of “centers of calculation” that organize various knowledge domains to facilitate certain modes of thought. This takes place with the aid of constructed functional systems. The production of handbooks for the Austrian or Czech contexts as a joint (and often publicly fundable) step of convergence may serve as an example. In this connection, learning is seen as a comparative process with memories of past experiences. The key coordination tools in the present case include sites, such as housing project inspections or study tours, real estate advertisements, and information exchange for initiatives, e.g., in members' meetings or counseling sessions. Third, McFarlane (2011) uses Heidegger's notion of dwelling to describe the process of targeted knowledge perception and composition. Attentiveness is trained in order to direct learning processes to the relevant aspects, to capture key meanings and to make connections. McFarlane (2011) referred to Amin and Roberts (2008) with regard to various types of learning, such as organizational learning (task knowing, professional knowing, creative knowing, virtual knowing). For example, professional knowing, i.e., developing the feeling for a professional habitus, involves the steps toward professionalizing housing project initiatives: appropriate attire for visits to the bank, changes of public appearances, and (adapted) self-presentations in the social media.

Research on the spatialities of social movements frequently uses an ethnographic approach which was also applied in the present study. In the sense of “studying through” (Shore and Wright, 1997, p. 14), the selection of methods was guided by mobile and other techniques: accompanying key activists developing policies and the analysis of relational situations in which strategic knowledge is mobilized (e.g., workshops, site visits)¹. All in all, we conducted 20 problem-centered interviews with key actors of the Mietshäuser Syndikat and its international “subsidiaries” (12/2017–1/2020). Ten of these interviews were network graph-assisted. The open network graphs were designed with reference to contacts/materialities and principles, such as the contents, direction, and strength of social relationships (Haythornthwaite, 1996). Being part of a larger research project, the survey methods also included approx. 40 problem-centered interviews with political and administrative representatives, other housing market actors (from public housing companies, cooperatives), and land foundations and local initiatives in an attempt to take account of vertical interactions and communal contexts; 10 of these were relevant and analyzed for the research presented in this paper. Two expert interviews completed the interview sample which is based on a snowball system (for a detailed description of the sample, cf. Table 1). Moreover, approx. 20 participant observations were carried out on the occasion of these (inter)national gatherings and other workshops (cf. Table 2). By this means, the groups' interactions and the backgrounds of their actions became comprehensible and reconstructable from within (Schöne, 2003). The sample was supplemented with an analysis of key documents issued by the Syndikat, especially toolkits like financing plans and brochures. Based on a theoretically oriented and inductively differentiated analytical framework, the transcribed interviews and Text Footnotes of the observations were evaluated with a thematic coding process (Braun and Clarke, 2012). On the basis of the spatial interaction and learning processes relevant to the research question, we identified central subject areas (1), proceeded a detailed comparison of related text passages (2) and developed a systematic coding procedure (3). The analysis of ego-centered networks among key actors on the basis of the designed network graphs served to disclose spatial features as well as the network functions and dynamics associated with the relations between commoners (Hollstein and Pfeffer, 2010; Herz et al., 2015); e.g., strong and weak ties at different scales (Granovetter, 1973), related extent of social capital and (Hennig, 2010), and brokerage between different networks (Della Porta, 2005).

The objective of the present study was to explore the mechanisms and challenges associated with the translocal mobilization of housing commons as exemplified by the Syndikat model found especially in Germany. The following major findings were identified:

Overall, the findings confirm existing spatial conceptualizations of social movements and allowed to differentiate some components specific to housing commons. Place-bound references can be stated to be dominant in discussing the international mobilization of the Syndikat model, with translocal effects unfolding at the same time and such influences being integrated. The transfer of knowledge and resources is thus effected as “place-based, but not necessarily place-bound” (Cumbers et al., 2008, p. 192).

The generation and utilization of translocal relationships is especially crucial to new initiatives in their start-up phases. These relationships facilitate access to knowledge and essential contacts, and thus to capital, tactics, and strategies. In addition, intensive horizontal exchange with international experts and allies can provide the decisive motivational push. In the course of project implementation, and in the longer term, however, local and regional network relationships are brought into focus. This is where strong ties become localized, with families and friends who serve as creditors, as well as a supportive movement with which further and frequently place-bound concerns may be addressed (cf. Nicholls, 2009).

At the local and partly regional level, furthermore, (partially) loose references are to be established in order to attract the public and supporters, and alliances be formed with politics and administration, as well as collaborations with experts and builders (cf. Czischke, 2018). Thus, new projects are involved in further translocal assemblages by means of multiple points of contact (Amin and Thrift, 2002). Accelerated by the principle of self-organization, the translocal learning processes eventually wear out at some point in time. Correspondingly, it becomes apparent that the direction of the knowledge flows gradually changes in the course of permanent translocal learning processes—the exchange of information then gradually becomes bidirectional, in part even rhizomatic, when habiTAT, Vrijcoop and other established “subsidiaries” increasingly support other European initiatives.

At once, weak global ties are of permanent importance with a view on certain functions (Nicholls, 2009), e.g., in such cases as the translocal acquisition of direct credits, the involvement of MOBA Housing SCE and other international housing networks, or when references are made to successfully international models in the framework of local political work in an attempt to establish new structures. In the cases of less specific international network functions, such as in the context of the “common spaces network,” the significance of strong grassrooting vectors in maintaining and advancing interaction between the communities has been confirmed (Cumbers et al., 2008). Thus, the diverse geographical characteristics of networks have been seen to fulfill various functions, as Nicholls (2009) postulated with regard to Granovetter's (1973) discussion of “strong and weak ties.” Furthermore, a break with the “bounded, grounded baggage that dwelling connotes” (McFarlane, 2011: p. 668) seems to have become obvious, while an alternative view on housing commons has come to exceed place boundedness. On the one hand, the limits of horizontal organizational principles within the association are becoming manifest as regards growth opportunities. On the other hand, and unlike more strongly upscaled housing commons, all members' permanent participation and other commoning principles still remain warranted (Moore and Mullins, 2013). Against the background of providing for the broadest possible expansion of urban commons, Harvey appealed to acknowledging the limitations and to being prepared “to go far beyond it when necessary” (Harvey, 2012, p. 70).

In this sense, and with a view on the needs for future research, the question remains as to the extent to which the discussed challenges can be met with alternative horizontal decision formats. Moreover, a focus should be laid on international network institutions. What can these institutions contribute to support housing commons, and what can they not contribute, in considering the backgrounds of non-arrival and non-adoption? In this regard, we also need to point out to the limitations of the qualitative research in this paper which cannot deliver a complete picture of translocal mobilization processes and related networks. Moreover, most of the inquiries took place before the pandemic, which has also made a mark on the mechanisms of housing commons mobilization. In the context of the interdependencies between urban and housing policy grassroots organizations and housing commoners, which have become apparent in this paper, it would finally be interesting to further pursue the translocal contact points of housing commons. As is the case with other (urban) commons, many housing commons models are unable to provide direct answers to the housing issue and other “large-scale problems” (Harvey, 2012: 69). Therefore, such an endeavor would serve to better pin down the role of the Mietshäuser Syndikat and other actors in the housing market, and beyond. Presumably, however, detecting these commoning practices could indirectly contribute to answers to larger societal challenges.

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Ethical review and approval was not required for this study in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements.

CH contributed substantially to the conception of the work, acquisition, analysis, interpretation of data for the work, drafted and revised the work critically for important intellectual content, approval for publication of the content, and agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

This work was made possible by the German Research Foundation within the research project Housing as a global urban commons. Strategies and networks for the transnational mobilization of alternative housing policies (2017–2023).

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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