Airbnb, Platform Capitalism and the Globalised Home

Airbnb, the most ubiquitous of the many online short-term rental platforms offering residential homes to tourists, has infiltrated local neighbourhoods and housing markets throughout the world. It has also divided policy-makers and communities over whether tourism in residential homes is a benign example of the so-called ‘sharing’ economy or a malignant practice which destroys neighbourhoods. These differing positions reflect alternative and changing notions of ‘home’ within wider processes of financialisation and platform capitalism. This paper examines these themes with reference to stakeholder statements solicited in response to government inquiries on how to regulate short-term rental housing in Australia.