Bucharest

Fieldwork in Bucharest is conducted primarily in its central neighborhoods. Spaces associated with remote work are unevenly distributed across the city and concentrated in specific central areas, particularly along a south-north urban corridor. Cafés, coworking spaces, and other places where people regularly work outside the home cluster in these zones. These areas draw individuals from across the city and operate as shared reference points for work, sociability, and professional interaction. These central sites provide an entry point for the ethnography, making it possible to trace how remote work is embedded in everyday movement and how work practices extend beyond residential settings. 

The residential dimension of the research is anchored in Bucureștii Noi, a northern district located toward the edge of the city and recently better connected to the centre through a newly built metro line. The area has a mixed housing landscape, combining socialist-era apartment blocks, small houses, and recent residential developments, and attracts residents from diverse age groups and class positions. While new amenities are gradually emerging, they remain uneven and insufficient to fully support everyday work and social life locally. Focusing on Bucureștii Noi allows the research to examine how remote work is lived at a distance from the centre, while also attending to internal differences in housing conditions and infrastructure, and how these shape daily routines, mobility, and neighbourhood life.