Public space is the place for assembly, the hub of democracy as well as the manifestation of power and (dis)empowerment of persons. PubliCdemoS Project explores the ways in which new forms of public agency extend politics to everyday life experiences by avenues of artistic expressions and aesthetic forms. The core aim of this project is to understand new politics of performative citizenship and public (un)making in multicultural settings.

Argument

New forms of public agency carried by persons and in collectivity bring forth the everyday life politics, the phenomenological dimensions of politics. Citizens acting together and enacting in public, manifest collectively their presence, are resetting democratic agendas and questioning pre-established social contracts. The traditional Public Square or Maïdan becomes the hub of urban democratic imaginaries as actors from different horizons and array of groups occupy the place and turn it into a theatrical scene. Public space democracy emerges on its own political terms, in distinction from avenues of parties and voting. New forms of public agency in relation to social movements, but also in difference from political collective action and intrinsically related to the person and to the subjective realm will be examined.

09.00 Welcoming Coffee

09.30 Nilüfer Göle, Reflections on public agency and public (un)making

10.00 Roundtable 1: Conceptual Framing: Public Square & Protests

• 10.00 Levent Yilmaz, Notes on the pre-history of the concept of place
• 10.20 Umut Ozkirimli, From protest to politics: Mapping the conceptual field
• 10.40 Boyan Znepolski, What theory for the new protest movements?

11.00 Questions and discussion

11.45 Lunch Break          

13.30 Roundtable 2: Case study: Gezi Movement & its aftermath

13.30 Baran Uncu, Embedding the prefigurations of Gezi Protests: The rhizomatic spread of new subjectivities and politicized

identities

• 13.50 Gökce Tuncel, From stadium to the streets: Çarşı as a spearhead in Gezi
• 14.10 Buket Türkmen, The actors of democracy watch in Turkey:

Towards a non-public construction of the space?

14.30 Questions and discussion

15.15 Coffee Break

15.30 Roundtable 3: Repertoire of contention: Counterpublics & civic power

• 15.30 Konstantinos Eleftheriadis, ‘Je ne suis pas Charlie’: Disidentification as a form of public agency
• 15.50 Tom Junes, New Public Agency versus historical continuities in protest repertoires: The case of Ukraine and Poland
• 16.10 Pablo Ouziel, Collective presences and representative governance. Transmutating civic power

16.30 Questions and discussion

17.15-18.00 General Conclusion