Theorising emergent public spheres: negotiating democracy, development, and dissent
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Date
2014
Authors
Barnett, Clive
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of the Free State
Abstract
This article outlines an analytical framework for investigating the variable formation
of public life. It suggests that theoretical accounts of the public sphere and related
ideas should be thought of less as normative models to be applied to new contexts,
and more as providing questions as to how different values of publicness emerge in
new situations. It is suggested that the South African experience of public formation
since the 1990s can inform the development of this type of framework, insofar as it
challenges some of the normative assumptions built into academic, activist and policy
understandings of the form and context of public life. The plurality of values associated
with ideas of publicness is elaborated through a discussion of the grammars of public
value; the specifically public content of publicness is shown to revolve around ideas
of sharing as partaking, and three paradigms of public action are identified. The
article concludes by identifying three dimensions around which the investigation and
evaluation of emergent public formations might be organised.
Description
Keywords
Public life
Citation
Barnett, C. (2014). Theorising emergent public spheres: negotiating democracy, development, and dissent. Acta Academica: Special issue: Rethinking the publics, 46(1), 1-21.