Designing Public Spaces and Constructing Public Spheres: A Manifesto

Abstract:This study focuses on the hegemonic struggles between two ethnic communities, the Mbo and the Bamiléké, in Santchou, West Cameroon. At issue is the sharing of political roles in this locality, which point to issues of political representation. In this district, these roles (mayor, representative, etc.) were under the single party rule of the ethnic minority Mbo, who are a majority in this area but a minority in the rest of the district, where the Bamileke are the majority. In this monolithic context, where all protests were banned, the Bamileke had given up and accepted this arrangement. With the advent of the multiparty system and democracy, in which mayors are now elected and no longer simply nominated, uncertainty has been hovering over this political stronghold of the Mbo. Nevertheless, the Mbo have been able to hold onto the post of mayor and acquire other political posts as well. However, unlike during the single party era, the situation created by the political liberalization has offered to the Bamileke a public space where they can discuss the allocation of local political positions, and manifest their disagreement with the hegemonic trend. In the footsteps of Habermas and many other authors such as Cottereau, this study underlines the need to talk about public spaces in a plural form, instead of a single public space, in order to put in context the internal dynamics of popular cultures engendering subcultural public spheres or places of emerging democracy.

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“There Are No Gay People Here”

Appalachia in Regional Context ◽

10.5810/kentucky/9780813175324.003.0006 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Mary L. Gray

Keyword(s):

Social Networks ◽

Young People ◽

Public Spaces ◽

The State ◽

Urban Identity ◽

Rural Region ◽

Public Spheres ◽

Queer Youth ◽

Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽

Place And Identity

This chapter explores the intersections between place and identity. The quote in the title is from the author’s ethnographic fieldwork in Kentucky, during which a politician indicated that no one identified as queer in his district because he represented a rural region of the state. This led the author to consider further the logic through which queer identity is associated with urban identity, and what that means for rural queer youth. She offers the concept of “boundary publics” to discuss the ways in which ephemeral experiences of belonging are created within more validated and recognized public spheres. She gives examples of how rural Kentucky queer young people, for example, create spaces for belonging within shared social networks and available public spaces, such as parks, churches, and Walmart.

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Public Spaces / Public Spheres: Some Geographies of Space and Democracy

Geography Compass ◽

10.1111/gec3.12007 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 6 (11) ◽

pp. 677-687

Author(s):

Malcolm Miles

Keyword(s):

Public Spaces ◽

Public Spheres

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The publicization of public space

Environment and Planning A Economy and Space ◽

10.1177/0308518x16665359 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 49 (3) ◽

pp. 519-536 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Cédric Terzi ◽

Stéphane Tonnelat

Keyword(s):

Public Space ◽

New Orleans ◽

John Dewey ◽

Political Action ◽

Public Spaces ◽

Urban Spaces ◽

Shared Experience ◽

Public Spheres ◽

The Media

In this article, we start by jointly examining the shortcomings contained in the substantial definitions of publicity commonly applied to the analysis of both public spaces (physical) and public spheres (political). We propose instead to consider publicity as a potential and publicization as a process, observable both in urban spaces and in the media. Building on John Dewey, we argue that when this process reaches its logical end, it determines and brings together a problem, a place, a sphere and a group of people that it makes public. It also leads to mechanisms of political action that constitute the ends of public space. Using the example of New Orleans post Katrina, we illustrate this process by discussing three obstacles that often stall or reverse publicization processes, which we believe deserve further study. Finally, we ground the values on which the process of publicization rests on the shared experience of trouble in potentially public spaces. This pragmatists approach opens the door to the study of publicization processes and public spaces beyond western cultures, and suggests an empirical way to deepen and reassess liberal conceptions of public space.

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At Home in Public: Intimacy and Belonging among Filipina and Indonesian Migrant Domestic Workers in Hong Kong in Ani Ema Susanti’s Effort for Love (2008) and Moira Zoitl’s Exchange Square (2007)

Plaridel ◽

10.52518/2020.16.2-07piocos ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 16 (2) ◽

pp. 161-180

Author(s):

Carlos Piocos

Keyword(s):

Hong Kong ◽

Sense Of Belonging ◽

Documentary Film ◽

Domestic Workers ◽

Public Spaces ◽

Migrant Women ◽

Public Spheres ◽

Documentary Video ◽

Private And Public ◽

Working And Living Conditions

This article discusses how Filipina and Indonesian domestic workers in Hong Kong claim and transform transnational sites as portrayed in Ani Ema Susanti’s 2008 short documentary film Mengusahakan Cinta [Effort for Love] and Moira Zoitl’s documentary video series Exchange Square (2007). The films depict how Indonesian and Filipina domestic workers negotiate precarious working and living conditions by deploying forms of intimacy, through their social practices and alternative sexualities, that enable them to gain agency in finding their own community and sense of belonging. This article argues that while their relationship to both private and public spaces in Hong Kong is transformed, these migrant women also actively transgress the borders of private and public spheres and personal and political realms.

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Tecnologias digitais, ação comunicativa e ética do discurso em redes sociais

Texto Livre Linguagem e Tecnologia ◽

10.17851/1983-3652.11.2.304-317 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 11 (2) ◽

pp. 304-317

Author(s):

Úrsula Cunha Anecleto

Keyword(s):

Social Networks ◽

Communication Networks ◽

Conceptual Analysis ◽

Communicative Action ◽

Digital Technologies ◽

Public Spaces ◽

Discourse Ethics ◽

Communicative Rationality ◽

Public Spheres ◽

The Subject

RESUMO: As tecnologias digitais contribuíram para o surgimento de uma nova sociedade interconectada, favorecendo a criação de redes de comunicação, que ampliaram as participações do sujeito em diversos espaços públicos. Nesse sentido, a interação passou também a estruturar-se por nova ética e outras estéticas, que levassem em conta necessidades comunicativas das pessoas, suas lógicas argumentativas e pretensões de validade do discurso. Nessa perspectiva, este artigo tem como objetivo apresentar análise teórico-conceitual sobre a ética do discurso como fundamento para a ação comunicativa nas interações em redes sociais tecnológicas. Teoricamente, ancora-se nos estudos sobre racionalidade comunicativa, ética do discurso e esfera pública (HABERMAS, 1889, 1990, 2007, 2012), e redes sociais (RECUERO, 2009; ARAÚJO, 2016; PRIMO, 2005; FRANCO, 2012; BUZATO, 2016). Metodologicamente, apresenta-se a partir de uma análise hermenêutica, tendo como enfoque pressupostos interpretativo-críticos (HABERMAS, 1982, 2006, 2010). Como contribuição, o estudo aponta que a comunicação em rede, fundamentada em princípios éticos, proporciona ao sujeito participação em esferas públicas, de forma livre e democrática, alicerçadas no diálogo, na reestruturação dos papéis comunicativos e na emancipação discursiva, a partir da formação de uma identidade pós-convencional. PALAVRAS-CHAVE: redes sociais; ação comunicativa; ética do discurso. ABSTRACT: Digital technologies have contributed to the emergence of a new interconnected society, favouring the creation of communication networks, which extended the participation of the subject in various public spaces. In this sense, the interaction also happened to be structured from new ethics and other and aesthetics, which took into account people's communicative needs, their argumentative logics and pretensions of discourse validity. In this perspective, this article aims at presenting theoretical-conceptual analysis on discourse ethics as the basis for communicative action in the interactions through technological social networks. Theoretically, it is based in the studies on communicative rationality, discourse ethics and public sphere (HABERMAS, 1889, 1990, 2007, 2012), and social networks (ARAÚJO, 2009; ARAÚJO, 2016, PRIMO, 2005; FRANCO, 2012; BUZATO, 2016). Methodologically, it is based on a hermeneutical analysis, grounded on interpretative-critical assumptions (HABERMAS, 1982, 2006, 2010). As a contribution, the study points out that network communication, based on ethical principles, provides participation in public spheres, in a free and democratic way, based on dialogue, on the restructuring of communicative roles and on discursive emancipation, from the formation of a postconventional identity. KEYWORDS: social networks; communicative action; ethics of the discourse.

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Being (co-)present: Reflecting the personal and public spheres of asylum seeking in relation to connectivity

Ethnography ◽

10.1177/1466138120907345 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 146613812090734

Author(s):

Claudia Lintner

Keyword(s):

Asylum Seekers ◽

Public Spaces ◽

Information And Communications Technology ◽

Structural Level ◽

Structured Interviews ◽

Public Spheres ◽

Personal Use ◽

Research Questions ◽

Refugees And Asylum Seekers ◽

Action Spaces

This article links the personal use/meaning of information and communications technology for refugees and asylum seekers with their visibility/invisibility in public spaces. More precisely, it gives insights into how the personal and public spheres of asylum seeking interrelate when discussing connectivity. In doing so, I discuss the following research questions: How is connectivity embedded in refugees and asylum seekers’ everyday practices? And in addition, in which ways does this personal dimension interact with the public (structural level), given their increased presence in public spaces? In order to respond to the research questions, a qualitative-ethnographic approach was chosen for this study by adopting different research methods: Participatory observations, semi-structured interviews, expert interviews, and document analysis. Such an approach is fundamental to avoid a media-centric analysis without accounting for offline contextual lives, power relations, and experiences. As the results show the meaning of connectivity within the asylum experience raises a public as well as a personal dimension. As such the meaning of the Internet is based on the agency of asylum seekers given restricted access to public spaces and social support offline. Thus, the results reveal that both Internet access and experiences of transnationalism/displacement constitute and configure connectivity. Following this line of argument, connectivity widely compensates for the spaces of action, spaces of learning, spaces of interaction, and spaces for information that are missing offline, in the process of emplacing themselves in a new environment.

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