Gambetti 91Conflict, “Commun-ication” and the Role of
Collective Action in the Formation of Public
Spheres
Zeynep Gambetti
Despite Marxist, feminist and postmodern misgivings about the notion of
the “public sphere” (especially concerning its liberal, masculine and mod-
ern connotations), not only ordinary language but also social theory has
obstinately allowed both the term and the notion to persist. In fact, there
seems to be a recent renewal of interest in the notion, one that is sparked
more by sociologists, anthropologists and historians than by political theo-
rists. The multiple, contradictory and amazingly innovative ways in which
the notion is used outside of political science is, by all means, an indica-
tion of its productiveness. But the proliferation of approaches and inter-
pretations is such that “public sphere” has now come to connote a wide
variety of phenomena, from the production of cultural modes of stranger-
relationality to the institutionalization of debate, from the site of resistance
to the medium of opinion formation and circulation. This may be too
much for a notion to bear, especially when it has not yet disentangled itself
from its legal, Hegelian connotation of state-related space or activity per-
taining to the public good. The public sphere cannot consistently signify
the state and society and a body that stands between state and society, all
at the same time. Furthermore, it cannot be brought to designate rational
activity and everyday relationality to strangers at the same time.
r can it? The growing number of anthropological studies on pub-O
lics and stranger-relationality has forcefully demonstrated that the con-
textual prerequisites of debating publics are produced by the circulation