Shami 31Middle East and North Africa region with its long and rich urban his-
tory. The importance of spaces that bring together strangers in discus-
sion, opinion exchange and consensus building is at the heart of the
Habermasian notion of public spheres, the sites of the coffee shop or
salons providing the prime example of physical spaces, and journals pro-
viding the example of mediated spaces. The chapters describe the role of
cafes, markets, plazas, churches, associations, bookstores and theaters in
enabling public discussion and participation. They describe how spaces
are sometimes taken over by state and other hegemonic forces and there-
fore controlled or neutralized, but that other spaces are able to evade that
control, even if only partially or some of the time, and somewhat occlude
the manifestations of power and hierarchy that threaten their autonomy.
And finally, the virtual spaces of new media operate their own modes of
inclusion and exclusion and construct consensus or dissent.
spatial orientation in thinking about public spheres brings to the A
fore a problem in the conception of public discussion and disputation that
is restricted to a certain understanding of “rational-critical discourse.” Not
only does such a conception ignore the manifold ways in which public
participation, political struggle and political community are formed, it
also neglects what Göle calls the “ocular” dimensions of the construction
of the public sphere. Communication takes place not only through speech
but rather the public sphere provides “a stage for performance.”^10 Just as it
is important to recognize the “imagined” quality of “publics” and political
communities, it is also important to examine the ways in which participa-
tion in collectivities and constructions of self vis-à-vis publics takes the
form of bodily practices, visual and symbolic cues and performative inter-
actions. The making of the self and the public are thus intertwined and
interconnected processes.^11
Publics as process
Thinking of public spheres as “spaces of contestation” and giving the
notion of “space” the full range of its interpretive power of the visual,
experiential and everyday experience of built environments and social
interactions highlights the processual and emergent quality of public
spheres. In understanding the relationship between publics and nation