Sorry, your browser doesn’t support embedded videos. Stories Project Stories 10.03.2025 After ownership – why did owning become a burden, and what is life after ownership like? From left to right Juhana Venäläinen, Ella Lillqvist, Tuomo Alhojärvi and Pieta Savinotko. Photo: University of Eastern Finland/Niko Jouhkimainen POST-OWNERSHIP PROJECT The research project Post-Ownership as an Interpretation and Experience of Economic Change introduces the concept of post-ownership as a means of understanding a transformation in economic discourse and thought characteristic of the 2020s. The project examines how the idea of post-ownership has taken shape, how and why it is culturally marketed as desirable, and how it operates as part of everyday economic life. Share: Researchers became interested in the shift in economic discourse: why are we increasingly being sold the idea that owning material things is burdensome and outdated? Cars are leased, tools are borrowed from libraries, and music is streamed via subscription services. In this interview, researchers Tuomo Alhojärvi, Ella Lillqvist, Pieta Savinotko, and Juhana Venäläinen discuss the promises associated with post-ownership life and how these promises have been challenged. Your research project is based on the observation that we are repeatedly presented with the idea that owning material things is outdated. What kind of shift in economic discourse and thinking are we witnessing? “Our research highlights how, in everyday economic discourse and various expert discussions, ownership is no longer seen as a source of freedom and financial security but rather as a burden and liability. For example, companies offering car rental services proclaim in their advertisements that ownership is not only practically unnecessary but also financially irrational—essentially, a poor investment and a bad idea overall. At the same time, cultural products such as music and books are increasingly consumed through digital platforms and subscription-based streaming services instead of physical copies. New business models are based on an assumed cultural shift where the ideal is a meticulously organized, minimalist life free of unnecessary material or emotional attachments, responsibilities, or obligations. In media narratives, post-ownership can mean “jumping off the hamster wheel,” searching for oneself, rejecting and abandoning material values, or embracing an ecological lifestyle. On the other hand, consumption without ownership can be seen as a middle-class form of distinction, which in itself requires significant financial and social capital, a stable future outlook, and safety nets that ensure access to resources without the need for direct ownership. Thus, the perceived changes in the meaning of ownership do not affect everyone equally but vary according to socioeconomic status and the nature of the assets in question.” The framing of rental services as sharing has sometimes been called “sharewashing,” where the concentration of economic power in large tech-owned platforms is presented as a form of communal and egalitarian change. What origins of the current form of post-ownership have you traced? “The discourse emphasizing digital platform-based sharing and renting, as well as business models built on these practices, gained momentum particularly from the mid-2010s and continues to evolve in various forms. Even the home organization craze and decluttering trends of the pandemic years have not subsided. However, these ideas have longer histories, and commercial platform services also draw on older notions of post-ownership, such as community-centered sharing, which was widely discussed in the early 2010s. The framing of rental services as sharing has sometimes been called “sharewashing,” where the concentration of economic power in large tech-owned platforms is presented as a form of communal and egalitarian change. It is also important to remember that efforts to establish economic systems independent of private ownership have long been at the core of economic and democratic activism. The public sector has played a role in these older forms of post-ownership, as demonstrated by our research on public libraries and their expanding object-lending services and shared-use spaces. Post-ownership is therefore not a single phenomenon but consists of multiple intersecting and sometimes contradictory discourses.” We have sought to uncover nuances and complexities in economic thought by exploring perspectives that challenge the notions of post-ownership as novel, easy, efficient, meaningful, or ecological. You have also observed economic life empirically at the grassroots level. What ethnographic case studies were included in your project, and in what ways does the economic everyday life you studied challenge the simplistic narratives of post-ownership as a major turnaround? “Our original aim was to examine the reception, interpretation, and critique of post-ownership promises through three case studies focusing on car use, libraries, and urban space utilization. However, while analyzing magazine material, a fourth sub-study emerged concerning the management of household objects. Since the discourse promoting the benefits of post-ownership often consists of slogans and repetitive messaging, we have sought to uncover nuances and complexities in economic thought by exploring perspectives that challenge the notions of post-ownership as novel, easy, efficient, meaningful, or ecological. For example, car ownership and the conditions for giving it up are tied to complex chains of cause and effect involving regional policies, insufficient public transportation, and the situational complexities of everyday life. The example of libraries, in turn, demonstrates that post-ownership practices can be constructed outside privately owned digital platforms. However, these alternatives do not arise spontaneously — post-ownership requires long-term effort and the development and maintenance of sharing infrastructures. We have challenged perceptions of urban space ownership through participatory mapping methods, which show that everyone “owns” and makes the city their own in different ways — these perceptions do not always align with the legal dimensions of ownership. Regarding household objects, we have found that the mainstream aesthetic of minimalism has been accompanied by counter-discourses and practices that reject decluttering. The abundance of possessions and the personal memories associated with them can represent joy and comfort or, alternatively, preparedness for crises.” A change in economic discourse and thinking, where the sole and permanent ownership of things is seen as cumbersome and old-fashioned, while various forms of sharing, renting and co-use seem to offer increasing freedom and flexibility. Post-ownership as a form of economic discourse both describes changes in economic practices and business models and questions the meanings traditionally attached to private property, actively seeking to influence the formation of new economic orders and cultural ideals. From left to right Pieta Savinotko, Juhana Venäläinen, Ella Lillqvist ja Tuomo Alhojärvi. Photo: University of Eastern Finland/Niko Jouhkimainen