Home motivations and lived experiences in housing cooperatives and cohousing communities: a two-contexts scoping review

Research on housing cooperatives and cohousing stems largely from social democratic countries. Contexts with less empirical evidence like liberal economy countries (LEC), studies centre on housing design, governance and time use. Evidence in Hispanic American countries (HAC) is also limited, raising critical questions about our current understanding of housing commons in global south contexts. Furthermore, there is a scarcity of analyses investigating residents’ motivations and lived experiences of home via residents’ voices across HAC and LEC. Addressing this knowledge gap, a scoping review was conducted through a relational perspective guided by the PRISMA methodology, which resulted in the analysis of 58 peer-reviewed articles. Results reveal that economic and socio-political drivers represent the main reasons for living in these communities. The residents’ lived experience yielded five areas: social capital, economic, environmental, design and knowledge generation/transfer. Findings indicate that even when cooperatives and cohousing are different in their vision, both require autonomy and an active role for residents during the home-making process.