430 Resisting Publics
embodying collective identities, as well as common ways of apprehend-
ing the environment, these normative expectations (and their associated
practical knowledge) regulating ordinary urban activities also influence
the wording and the understanding of “public issues,” and possibly the
framing of political actions within the city.^13
hat if we bring power back into the discussion? This normative W
background and its associated procedures, while regulating social rela-
tions, participate in maintaining the stability of a specific social order.
Those who comply in their discourses, practices and behaviors are catego-
rized as respectable members of the concerned community and contrib-
ute to the reproduction of the system. Those who do not are disqualified/
stigmatized and are likely to create at least disorientation or embarrass-
ment, or to be exposed to “public” disapproval or even punishment.^14
Examples might include tourists disrespecting a sacred site, drivers fail-
ing to yield the right of way, people not waiting their turn while in line;
but also spectators talking loudly during a play, individuals disclosing
their sexual identity through evocative attire or behavior in a conserva-
tive environment, or participants unable to reframe their private interests
in more universal terms during a debate on the “public good.” Specific
agents and devices of regulation may even prevent those unfamiliar with
the required practical knowledge from accessing the public space in ques-
tion. Each “engagement regime” in a public space is thus conditioned by
compliance with specific procedures and knowledge, defining the borders
of the group—providing categories to qualify it, regulate its actions and
discourses, and differentiate it from the rest of the environment.^15 In the
same movement, by sharing these codes, the “public” emerges. Offering
benchmarks to determine the degree of legitimacy and visibility of behav-
iors, discourses and actions in public, this “grammar of the public life” is
not unchanging.^16 It varies in time and space: each social organization,
each cultural and political configuration is linked to a specific definition
of what is allowable or not in public, delineating “proper” and “improper”
behavior within a community. My argument is that public grammars
evolve according to the state of power relations and their transformations.
Through this grammar, the rules and norms of social and political orga-
nization are played out. Consequently, public grammar is constantly reas-
serted, but also renegotiated or challenged, whenever and wherever actors