Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the frictions and moral dilemmas that members of Danish housing cooperatives experience and try to manage when cultivating a "right balance" between their sense of community, collective finances and members' individual economic interests which, if pursued too openly or tactlessly, are thought to destroy the moral community.

Paper long abstract:

In the Danish housing cooperatives in this study, interest and affect intersect at least at two levels: At the level of individual members against the collective and at the level of the cooperatives' collective economies. The moral communities of the housing cooperatives fundamentally rest on collective ownership of the cooperatives' property, the members' homes, and on taking care of this collective property together, but the hard-core economic facts are traditionally kept out of everyday interaction between the members. Rather, 'the economy,' both the members' and the cooperatives' collective finances, is confined to special settings and ritualized events such as meetings and general assemblies where affect is controlled by bureaucratic procedures such as agendas and polling rules, while the moral community is celebrated during seasonal events such as Christmas and Shrovetide and work parties where the economic aspects are downplayed.

The last decade's commercialization of cooperative property, its integration into the private housing market and its increasing complexity caused by the introduction of new financial products have challenged the already shaky balance between 'business' and 'community,' played out in different ways at several levels in local communities, with occasional moral outbreaks. This paper explores the cultural assumptions and silent predicaments about collective property, common goods and social values that surface in the moral discussions about commercialization.