448 Resisting Publics
of debate. This suggests that public action needs to be grounded in “ordi-
nary” public experiences to make sense among the inhabitants as well.
o observe public spheres in a contentious and restrictive environ-T
ment thus requires that we question their conditions of emergence, nota-
bly by looking at how everyday practices, including the more discrete,
embody or challenge the dominant public grammar. Such an approach,
which repositions the public sphere at the core of a power struggle, fur-
ther blurs the distinction between “public” and “private” and calls for an
analysis that pays more attention to the mechanisms of passage between
“hidden” and “public” transcripts.^52