staeheli and mitchell locating the public in research and practice
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Progress in Human Geography
DOI: 10.1177/03091325070835092007; 31; 792Prog Hum Geogr
Lynn A. Staeheli and Don MitchellLocating the public in research and practice
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Progress in Human Geography 31(6) (2007) pp. 792811
2007 SAGE Publications DOI: 10.1177/0309132507083509
Locating the public in research and practice
Lynn A. Staeheli1* and Don Mitchell2
1Institute of Geography, University of Edinburgh, Drummond Street,
Edinburgh EH8 9XP, UK2Department of Geography, The Maxwell School, Syracuse University,
NY 13244, USA
Discussions of public space and the public have become complicated in recent years. This article
seeks to bring some clarity to these discussions by examining where participants in public spacedebates locate the public those spheres or realms where participants believe a public is constituted
and where public interest is found. To identify the ways in which public space is conceptualized
and located, we analyze the literature on public space, interviews with scholars actively involved
in public space research, and interviews with participants in a series of public space controversies in
the USA. We find that differing definitions of the public that underlie these conceptualizations are
rooted in strongly held political orientations and normative visions of democracy. But we also find
that there is considerable overlap in how participants frame their understandings of publicity, and
thus there is a basis for more thorough debate and even transformation of policy and practice.
Key words: community, democracy, public, public space, publicity
*Author for correspondence. Email: [email protected]
The meaning of public space has become
increasingly complex in recent years, as
research grounded in diverse theoretical
perspectives and personal experiences has
burgeoned. Whereas it once may been un-
problematic to equate public space with
open or accessible space, this is no longer
the case, as a range of questions about what
makes a space public have been introduced.
Similarly, theoretical debates and political
action have pried open the meanings of thepublic, publicity, and public-ness, consid-
erably complicating discourses in normative
political theory, critical geography, and other
fields. Thirty or 40 years ago it might have
been possible to write about an abstract, dis-
embodied public to which a public interest
could be attributed or for which a public good
could be produced, but successive identity-
based movements in politics and the acad-
emy have called to the fore assumptions
about how the public is constituted and who
populates it. As Sallie Marston (1990) to
pick just one of many contributors to this
movement asks: Who are the people?
The prying open and complicating of dis-course about the public also complicates
what is meant by public space. If one ques-
tion animating political theory is who are
the people?, then other questions, raised
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Lynn A. Staeheli and Don Mitchell: Locating the public in research and practice 793
especially in human geography, are what
makes a space public? and therefore how does
space shape who counts as the people?.
The reconsideration of public space, the
public, and publicity are not disconnected.
Yet is it not simply a matter ofwho the
public is that makes talking about publicspace difficult and so important. Scholars
also take differing perspectives on what
constitutes the public realm or public sphere.
Scholars disagree as to whether the public is
equivalent to the government. Or whether
the public realm is defined by the issues
discussed in public. Or whether the public
realm is any venue or forum in which discus-
sions of communal concerns are held. It is
even more confusing when activists and
scholars transgress the boundaries of publicand private whatever they may be to make
a political point. In arguing that the personal
is political, for instance, does it mean that
the private realm is public? And is that really
what people advocating reproductive and
sexual freedom want, knowing that the
personal being political may also make private
decisions susceptible to public debate and
perhaps state surveillance over freedoms
that would otherwise be exercised in pri-
vate? The multiplicity of meanings of publicin this paragraph alone is enough to make a
theorists or an activists head spin.
Furthermore, it is not just scholars and
activists who have challenged the meaning
of public. As one might expect, given scholarly
and social movement agitation, the meaning
of the term has become the subject of formal
political and policy debates, including debates
about faith-based initiatives for social ser-
vices, about funding for non-state schools,
and about extending rules regarding non-discrimination to organizations that do not
take governmental money. From the per-
spective of academic researchers, one of the
most important debates about the meaning
of public comes in the context of disciplinary
calls for increased relevancy and debates
over how research should serve the public
interest since, as already noted, such a
singular interest is almost impossible to find
(see Blomley, 1994; Tickell, 1998; Castree,
2000; Martin, 2001; Massey, 2004; Beaumont
et al., 2005; Murphyet al., 2005; Staeheli and
Mitchell, 2005; Ward, 2005).
Perhaps some clarity can be brought to
the swirling and somewhat confused dis-cussion of the public and publicity and their
relationship to public space by attempting
to understand where various participants
in the debate locate the public. By locate,
we mean the spheres, realms and even
physical spaces where participants believe
a public is constituted and where a public
interest is to be found. We want to understand
the different uses of public in everyday
and academic discourse, and to relate these
different families of usage to the normativegoals that participants bring to debates about
the public and public space.
We attempt to address these issues
through an extensive review of the academic
literature on public space in geography,
interviews with academic researchers, and
interviews with participants in controversies
over public space. In so doing, we rely on a
previously developed taxonomy of the public
and compare the ways in which academics
and participants in public space controversiesconceptualize the relationship between
publicity and public space. In the following
section of the article, we explain our concep-
tual and methodological approach to this
analysis more fully. We then describe the
taxonomy we use to evaluate the meanings
of public deployed in research and practice.
The final sections of the article explore the
location of the public in both realms.
I Approaching the publicWe rely on a previously developed tax-
onomy of the public developed by Jeffrey
Weintraub (1995) explained more fully
below as a starting point for our analysis of
a close reading of the public space literature
in geography, interviews with researchers
on public space, and interviews with partici-
pants in public space controversies in five
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794 Progress in Human Geography 31(6)
US cities. Weintraubs taxonomy is useful in
that it culls the various definitions of public
from a considerable range of literatures in
political theory and discusses the implicit
normative meanings assigned to public in
each. As a political theorist, Weintraubs
approach differs from that more commonlyutilized in geography, where discourses
on the public are analyzed albeit often
implicitly in terms of spatiality, focusing on
whether theories and definitions are spatial
or aspatial and whether their relational forms
are understood to be spatial relations or not.
Weintraubs categories productively crosscut
the spatial-aspatial continuum and, by doing
so, serve as a useful heuristic for clarifying
what is at stake politically, socially, and in
the development of geographic theory inthe complex meanings of the public that
have evolved over the past generation. Our
point is not to provide a singular definition
of the public, nor is it to bemoan the com-
plexity of the debate, as we see this complex-
ity as a positive value. Rather, we seek to
find ways to make sense of the complexity
so that it can continue to be productive, both
politically and theoretically.
We derived the definitions of the public,
publicity, and public space that form thecore of this analysis through a review of
the geographical literature on public space,
interviews with a subset of academics who
have contributed to that literature, and
interviews with participants in public space
controversies in US cities that were typical
of the sorts of controversies about public
space and publicity that geographers study.1
The literature review involved a systematic
analysis of the Anglophone, geographic
literature published between 1945 and 1998.We identified 218 articles, book chapters,
and books as focused on public space, and as
having either been written by a geographer
or as having been published in a geographic
journal or book. These items were evaluated
in terms of their definitions of public space,
theoretical orientations, empirical foci, data
and methods, and constructions of relevance.
In the second step, we identified all the authors
of those articles who have a PhD and who
were working in the USA during the interview
period.2 We then conducted interviews with
all these authors still living, willing, and able
to participate. In total, we conducted 25
interviews with academic geographers.In order to understand both the nature of
public space controversies and specific
actors roles in them, we also conducted
interviews in spring 2001 in five US cities
with government officials, activists, business
owners or managers, social service providers,
planners, and others.
In San Diego, we asked about downtown
redevelopment and homelessness.
In New York City, our focus was on com-munity gardens.
In Syracuse, New York, we explored de-
bates over public financing for the recon-
struction of a shopping mall.
In Washington, DC we examined a
classic issue in public space: protests and
parades.
Finally, we examined changes to the Plaza
in the heart of Santa Fe, New Mexico.
In these interviews, we sought to elicit howpeople framed or defined public space and
whether and why they thought it was im-
portant; through these questions, we sought
to understand how they conceived of the
public.
As will become apparent, our analytical
strategy has been to parse the definitions of
public and public space at work in the litera-
ture and in the interviews to provide insight
into the muddled terrains of academic theory
and research, the social and political prac-tices that shape public space, and the traffic
between them. Weintraubs categorization
provides a means to systematically evaluate
this discourse, and it provides a means for
understanding the nature of the similarities
and differences within it. At the same time,
the data we compile from the literature on pub-
lic space and the interviews with academics
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Lynn A. Staeheli and Don Mitchell: Locating the public in research and practice 795
and participants allow us to critically evaluate
and elaborate upon Weintraubs categories
themselves. Through our analysis, we show
that not only is consensus about what con-
stitutes the public or public space impossible,
it is not even desirable. Nonetheless, we also
show that understanding the source andnature of the differences in meanings is vital
to the development of new understandings
and new normative political projects.
II What and where is the public:
Weintraubs taxonomy
Through an analysis of the literature in
political theory, Jeffrey Weintraub (1995)
has argued that public and private the
relations of what we are calling publicity
(public-ness)3 are typically conceptualizedin four (not necessarily mutually exclusive)
ways:
A liberal-economistic version of publicity
rooted in mainstream economics and lib-
eral political theory in which the public is
defined as the state and its administrative
functions, while the private is the realm of
the economy. Basic rights and freedoms
for individuals are located in the public in
this conceptualization. Discussions in geo-graphy about public policy (eg, Martin,
2001) and on increasing geographys rele-
vance in the wider world (eg, Abler, 1983;
Harman, 2003) tend, at least implicitly, to
work from this model of publicity.
A republican-virtue model in which the
public sphere is conceptualized as per-
taining to community, the polity, and
citizens, and the private sphere is related
to the household (and private property).
Weitraub traces this model to the writ-ings of Aristotle, and it can be easily iden-
tified in the work of historians such as
Edmund Morgan (1988) and, through
him, in the work of geographers such as
Marston (1990) and Mitchell (1995).
A model rooted in practices ofsociability,
wherein the public refers to symbolic dis-
play and self-representation; the private
in this conceptualization is any aspect of
self that individuals choose not to make
public through display. Its most well-
known expression is in the work of Jane
Jaco bs (eg, Jaco bs, 1961) and Erv ing
Goffman (1959), but Weintraub identifies
Philippe Airs (1962), who tracks the de-velopment of public life in cities, as the
best example of this. Authors such as Iris
Marion Young (1990) and Richard Sennett
(1970; 1992) provide more contemporary
examples, as does the work in geography
of authors such as Mona Domosh (1998)
and Susan Ruddick (1996).
A Marxist-feminist model in which public
refers to the state and economy, and pri-
vate refers to the domestic and familial.
Early socialist-feminist work in geography(eg, McDowell, 1983) seems to work
through this model, as does much of the
research on the relations between public
and private (eg, Rose, 1990; Staeheli,
1996).
The range of different approaches to pub-
licity is obviously wide, especially since this
is not an exhaustive taxonomy, but rather
one that describes the main trends in pol-
itical theory. As such, it is not surprising thatsimilar language talk of public and private
boundaries, of publicity and privacy, of pub-
lic and private goods, of public and private
spaces and spheres often invokes different
meanings and points to divergent political
projects. For some, the public refers to the
economy, for others the state (and decidedly
not the economy), for yet others it will mean
the polity, the community, the crowd on the
street, or the street itself.4 The public, in other
words, is differently located in each of thesediscourses.
Weintraubs (1995) taxonomy sought
to categorize the political discourse. But it
is conceivable that the kinds of spaces that
foster publicity might be different for each
category. That is, it is conceivable that the
public is not only differentially located dis-
cursively, but also geographically, and that
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796 Progress in Human Geography 31(6)
different kinds of publics occupy different
kinds of spaces. For example, a public space
that would foster a liberal-economistic version
of publicity might be one that facilitates state
functioning and makes it easier for the state
to safeguard and regulate individual rights
and to promote economic development andgrowth. Put another way, such a model of
publicity might require (or produce) a space
that allows for free political expression, but
requires such expression to be in a form that
is decorous and that can be regulated to fit
within the logics and rationalities of the gov-
ernmental system (Habermas, 1970; Healy,
1992).
A public space fostering republican-
virtue, on the other hand, might facilitate
public interaction, but not necessarily inter-action with the formal apparatus of govern-
ment. Rather, these spaces might be where
communities or civil associations set rules
of inclusion according to the moral values
and social expectations of the community
in order to enhance (in part, by making
more comfortable) interactions between
community members. Exclusion might be
acceptable if people refuse to conform to
agreed upon behaviors or if an individual is
seen as disrespectful or disruptive (Cohenand Arato, 1992; Etzioni, 1993).5 Similarly
but with a different political inflection
the republican virtue model might indicate
the need for public spaces where subaltern
counterpublics (Fraser, 1990) or other outsider
groups can form, engage in debate, and make a
bid for either inclusion in or the transformation
of the wider public sphere.
By contrast to the first two kinds of public
spaces, a space of sociability might be more
chaotic or unpredictable, as it would notnecessarily be based on governmentally-
or socially-defined rules of conduct and
conformance; spaces of sociability might
be produced precisely through the act of
being sociable (Berman, 1983; Wilson, 1992;
Amster, 2004). And yet, many argue that
to promote sociability to make people wel-
come relatively highly regulated spaces must
be produced (hence the perceived success
of malls and festival marketplaces as social
spaces (Goss, 1993; 1999; see also Lees, 1998).
The point here is what is being struggled
over: a public space of sociability is meant
to be a space of display and publicity in
this sense a literal coming-into-the-public ofprivate individuals rather than a space of
overtly political struggle or a space defined
by the state. It may or may not be relatively
open or chaotic; it may or may not be heavily
regulated by the state, or by specific private
interests such as mall owners.
Finally, the model of publicity outlined
in Marxist-feminist theory might look (if crit-
ically) for those public spaces that facilitate
economic activities, that reinforce hege-
monic norms of gender or class, and in whichthe power of the state and powerful private
interests are clearly present. One would ex-
pect to see spaces that are tightly regulated,
but in ways that encourage accumulation, ease
commerce, and strengthen the power to govern,
rather than encourage self-development,
community building, or political transformation
(McDowell, 1983; Davis, 1990; Sorkin, 1992;
Fincher, 2004). Partisans in this discourse might
seek to promote spaces that do encourage the
latter goals, and thus will often turn to oneof the other models of understanding pub-
licity the republican or sociability models,
for example as a means for developing argu-
ments and practices.
Thus, while the theoretical perspectives
on publicity canvassed by Weintraub (1995)
may not have been developed as a typology
of public space, per se, we would be surprised
if this taxonomy did not go far in logically
categorizing the ways that researchers and
people involved in creating (and recreating)public spaces talk about publicity. At the
same time, geographers strong focus on
space is likely to inflect the discourse on pub-
licity in different ways than political theory.
Thus, we expect that the geographical litera-
ture will remake the meaning of Weintraubs
categories in significant ways, ways that shed
light on the value or lack thereof of locating
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Lynn A. Staeheli and Don Mitchell: Locating the public in research and practice 797
the public geographically. Finally, it is likely
that there will be systematic similarities and
differences between how geographers define
and theorize publicity and public space and
how lay people directly involved in public
space controversies will define and theorize
these. These similarities and differences, tothe extent they exist, are politically important,
and they are important to the broader public
sphere discourse. Our analysis in the rest of
the article, therefore, explores how discussions
of the public, its significance, and its location
unfold in academic research and political
practice.
III Locating the public in public space
research
1 Analysis of the Literature
Even a cursory glance at the geographic
literature on public space indicates that
geographers vary widely in how they define
the public, public space, and publicity. To
undertake our analysis, we coded each of
the 218 public space books, chapters, and
articles first in terms of keywords that de-
fined public space for the author (eg, street,
park, danger, place of sociability, meeting
place, open space, etc.). Many pieces con-
tained more than one definitional element
(eg, public space was the street, and it
was a place of display; public space wasopen space and it contained an element of
danger). Second, we also determined through
keyword or more accurately key phrase
analysis, the reasons authors understood
public space to be important (eg, it is a place
of politics, it provides open space in a crowded
city, it is essential to democracy). Determin-
ing definitions and recording importance
was an inductive exercise. The categories we
created arose from the literature itself. This
strategy allowed us to assess both the rangeof definitional elements and their relative
frequency.
The most common definitions of public
space are unsurprising (Table 1). Definitions
that stressed the physical aspects of public
space were apparent in 37% of the literature,
while some 27% of the literature defined public
Table 1
Definition of public space* Number of articles % ArticlesPhysical definition (eg, streets, parks, etc.) 80 37%
Meeting place or place for interaction 58 27%
Sites of negotiation, contest or protest 51 23%
Public sphere, no physical form 34 16%
Opposite of private space 32 15%
Sites of display 28 13%
Public ownership, public property 25 12%
Places of contact with strangers 23 11%
Sites of danger, threat, violence 21 10%
Places of exchange relations (eg, shopping) 19 9%Space of community 18 8%
Space of surveillance 17 8%
Places of open access no or few limits 16 7%
Places lacking control by individuals 15 7%
Places governed by open forum doctrine 12 6%
Idealized space no physical form 5 2%
* Multiple definitions in an article are possible. Definitions are not mutually exclusive.
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798 Progress in Human Geography 31(6)
space as a meeting place stressing its social
and/or political function. Perhaps reflecting a
critical edge in geographic research on public
space, the third most common definition
seemed to link public space to negotiation
and contestation an agonistic view of pub-
lic space (23%). It is notable that some 16%of the literature in geography linked public
space to the public sphere and specified no
identifiable material form. Another 2% de-
fined public space as idealized and with no
material form, but did not make reference
to the public sphere.
The variety of definitions of public space
in the literature was matched by the variety
of stated reasons as to why public space
was important (Table 2). Here, public space
was indicated as important for functionalor sociable activities such as meeting and
walking (33%), but also because of its role in
democracy and political movements (30%).
A like number (30%) figured public space as
important for socialization into community
norms, while 15% noted it as important for
building community, and 16% for forming
and affirming identity. In short, all these
stated reasons of importance indicate that
geographers see public space as crucial for
creating or sustaininga public. Meanwhile, and
not necessarily at odds with the above, some
23% of the articles stressed the importance
of public space as a site where conflicts are
expressed and sometimes worked through.
Based on this counting method, it seemed
that there were two primary ways in which
public space and publicity were discussed inthe geographical literature. One set of dis-
cussions emphasized the democratic and
political nature of public space (both affir-
matively and critically), and the second
emphasized its social function (also both
affirmatively and critically). This impression
was confirmed through a cluster analysis
of the definitions of public space and the
importance of public space. Using K-means
cluster analysis,6 two clusters emerged.
The first cluster included those articles thatdescribed public space as a meeting place,
but one characterized by danger, contact
with strangers, and lack of individual control.
The importance of public space, in this first
cluster, was as a place for socialization and
for identity formation and affirmation made
possible by the functions that occurred in
public space, such as walking, recreation,
and casual interactions; 141 articles were
included in this cluster. The second cluster
(74 articles) included those articles that also
Table 2
Importance of public space Number of articles % Articles
Important due to function (eg, walking, gathering) 72 33%
Socialization, behavior modification, discipline 66 30%
Democracy, politics, social movemements 65 30%
Sites of contest 51 23%
Sites of identify formation 35 16%
Places for fun, vitality, urbanity, spirit of city 33 15%Building community or social cohesion 32 15%
Sites of identity affirmation 30 14%
Living space (eg, for homeless people) 26 12%
Justice** 0 0%
Number of articles 218
* Multiple senses of importance are possible. Answers are not mutually exclusive.
** Identified by researchers in interviews, but not in articles.
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Lynn A. Staeheli and Don Mitchell: Locating the public in research and practice 799
described public space as a meeting place,
but this time characterized by negotiation
and conflict, surveillance, displays of ideas,
public ownership and accompanying legal
doctrines, and high degrees of accessibility.
The importance of public space in this second
cluster was as a location for democracy,politics, and social movements.
In Weintraubs terms, the literature on
public space primarily conceives of it in
terms of the sociability and republican virtue
models. While Marxist, feminist, and liberal-
economic theories might significantly influ-
ence approaches taken and the construction
of research project,normatively geographers
seem to be primarily interested in public space
in relation to politics, community, and identity.
If the state or business interests have a role toplay in these, it is in terms of enabling or under-
mining the possibilities for sociability and
politics, not as publics in and of themselves.
2 Analysis of interviews with researchers
Inferring definitions of public space and its
importance from the literature is difficult,
however, as many articles define terms and
signal importance only indirectly. Further-
more, authors often tailor their operation-
alization of terms and concepts to the goalsof a journal or edited book, to address re-
viewer commentaries, or to intervene into
specific debates in the literature. To look
more deeply into the ways researchers them-
selves understand the relationship between
publicity and public space, therefore, we
conducted 25 interviews with a subset of the
authors of this literature. In these interviews
we asked respondents directly to define pub-
lic space and to discuss its importance; in so
doing we sought to understand how theydefined the public.7
These interviews showed, in fact, that
there are identifiable differences or perhaps
nuances between how geographers write
about public space and how they articulate
their interest in and knowledge of it. The
most common definitions of public space in-
ferred from the interviews was as a meeting
place (occurring in 44% of the interviews8)
and as a place lacking control by specific
individuals (44%) (Table 3). What was strik-
ing in the interviews, however, was the re-
duced importance of definitions that stressed
material, physical spaces (8%) as compared to
the idealized spaces of the public sphere thatwas woven into the fabric of the city in ways
that could not easily be separated from private
spaces. Similarly, definitions of public space
as a site of contestation were relatively rare
in the interviews (8%) in comparison with the
literature.9 Perhaps reflecting a more abstract
way of discussing publicity and public space,
many of the researchers we interviewed
noted that the meaning of public space and
its importance were contingent historically,
spatially, and with regard to the issue beingstudied a position not absent, but also not as
readily apparent, in the literature itself.
As in the articles, the importance of public
space was discussed in terms of engaging
in democratic action (32% of interviews)
(Table 4). More strongly represented in the
interviews than in the articles, however, were
arguments that stressed the importance of
public space in terms of identity formation
(24%), identity affirmation (24%), and com-
munity building/social cohesion (32%). Con-versely, interviewees downplayed the im-
portance of public space as a site for specific
functions such as walking or gathering (8%
of interviews) or socialization/behavioral
modifications (4%). In essence, most of the
respondents held a conceptualization of the
public (and thus the importance of public
space) that is rooted in forms of sociability.
However, central to many of the interviews
was an argument that sociability was vital for
building a more inclusive public realm. At work,therefore, was a conceptualization of public
space and the public that was normatively
political, to some degree bridging Weintraubs
categories of sociability and republican
virtue, in a way that was less apparent in the
published literature, where more clear-cut
categorizations were apparent.
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Table 3
Definition of public space*
Number of
articles
%
Articles
Number of
researchers
%
Researchers
Physical definition (eg, streets, parks, etc.) 80 37% 2 8%
Meeting place or place for interaction 58 27% 11 44%
Sites of negotiation, contest or protest 51 23% 2 8%
Public sphere, no physical form 34 16% 5 20%
Opposite of private space 32 15% 5 20%
Sites of display 28 13% 1 4%
Public ownership, public property 25 12% 3 12%
Places of contact with strangers 23 11% 0 0%
Sites of danger, threat, violence 21 10% 0 0%
Places of exchange relations (eg, shopping) 19 9% 1 4%
Space of community 18 8% 2 8%
Space of surveillance 17 8% 1 4%
Places of open access no or few limits 16 7% 0 0%Places lacking control by individuals 15 7% 11 44%
Places governed by open forum doctrine 12 6% 1 4%
Idealized space no physical form 5 2% 3 12%
* Multiple definitions in an article or interview are possible. Definitions are not mutually exclusive.
Table 4
Importance of public space*
Number of
articles
%
Articles
Number of
researchers
%
Researchers
Important due to function (eg, walking,
gathering)
72 33% 2 8%
Socialization, behavior modification,
discipline
66 30% 1 4%
Democracy, politics, social movemements 65 30% 8 32%
Sites of contest 51 23% 4 16%
Sites of identify formation 35 16% 6 24%
Places for fun, vitality, urbanity, spirit
of city
33 15% 3 12%
Building community or social cohesion 32 15% 8 32%
Sites of identity affirmation 30 14% 6 24%
Living space (eg, for homeless people) 26 12% 3 12%
Justice** 0 0% 3 12%
Number of articles/researchers 218 25
* Multiple senses of importance are possible. Answers are not mutually exclusive.
** Identified by researchers in interviews, but not in articles.
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Lynn A. Staeheli and Don Mitchell: Locating the public in research and practice 801
3 Summary and conclusions: academic
perspectives
In sum, it appears from the literature and
interviews that academic geographers
primarily work with models of publicity
that associate the public with community,
polity, and citizenship, and that emphasizesociability. They associate (both positively
and negatively) such models of publicity with
spaces that are open, struggled over and in,
and that are sites, or foundations, for identity
formation, community building, and social
cohesion. In so doing geographic discourse
tends to outline a narrower conceptual uni-
verse focusing on only two of Weintraubs
four categories than does political theory
more broadly. Yet even within this narrower
universe there are identifiable differences inhow geographers write about publicity and
public space as compared to the ways they
talk about it (Table 5).
Yet, it is important to note that not all
of the respondents linked sociability with
politics, in part because of the ways they
conceptualize publicspace. Indeed some re-
spondents actively rejected the relationship
between sociability, politics, and public space
giving voice to a significant undercurrent in
the literature and indicating how varied thefield really is. As one person argued:
I think that the term public space, when used
in academia perhaps, has been maybe over
politicized or prematurely politicized. In other
words, if someone says public space, planners
and architects kind of look at each other like
oh-oh, here we go again. I have a basic
disagreement with a lot of critical geographers in
that Ive found that almost everyone is allowed
in [public space]. Im more optimistic, Im
happier with the situation than I believe most
critical geographers are. I dont see very many
people being excluded. And the ones who are,very often, are the ones that I would exclude if
I had the option.
Throughout the interview, this person
allies himself with the general, non-academic
public, and he suggests that people outside
the academy may hold another set of ideas
about what makes a space public, about the
significance of public space, and about the
appropriateness of different uses of space.
Following his lead, we explored this possibility
through interviews with people actively
involved in public space controversies in five
US cities.
IV The public according to the public
1 Similarities and differences with the
academic discourse
The participants in public space controver-
sies whom we interviewed were identified
through newspaper searches and snowball
strategies, and thus it is unlikely that theyare representative of how the public as a
whole conceptualizes publicity and public
space. Nonetheless, because our interviews
concerned five quite different public space
struggles, and included a range of people
from planners to activists, from business
leaders to architects, and from police to inter-
ested lay people, they do give an idea of
the range of conceptualizations. From their
responses to our questions, it seems that
participants in public space controversies maythink about these issues differently than do
academic researchers. The results reported
in Tables 6 and 7 undoubtedly reflect the
very different kinds of issues we addressed
in the case studies and the contingency in
the ways people understand publicity a
contingency that many of the academic re-
searchers highlighted in interviews. Given
Table 5
Classification of
public
Academic
research
Academic
interviews
Liberal-economistic:
Public is state
Not
mentioned
Not
mentioned
Republican-virtue
Public is polity
Primary
emphasis
Primary
emphasis
Sociability: Public is
representation
Primary
emphasis
Primary
emphasis
Marxist-feminist:
Public is market
and state
Not
mentioned
Secondary
empasis
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Table6
Definitionofpublicspace*
Number
articles
%Articles
N
umber
acad.
int.
%of
acad.
int.
Total
siteints.
%Siteint.
NewYork
San
Diego
SantaFe
Syracuse
Washington
Physicaldefinition(eg,streets,
parks,etc.)
80
37
2
8
11
17
3
3
4
1
Meetingplace,placeofinteraction
58
27
11
44
11
17
2
8
1
Siteofnegotiation,contestor
protest
51
23
2
8
1
2
1
Publicsphere,nophysical
form
34
16
5
20
0
0
Oppositeofprivatespace
32
15
5
20
3
5
1
2
Siteofdisplay
28
13
1
4
0
0
Publicownership,publicp
roperty
25
12
3
12
15
24
4
4
2
2
3
Placeofcontactwithstrangers
23
11
0
0
1
2
1
Sitesofdanger,threat,vio
lence
21
10
0
0
0
0
Placesofexchangerelations(eg,
shopping)
19
9
1
4
3
5
2
1
Spaceofcommunity
18
8
2
8
9
14
7
1
1
Spaceofsurveillnace
17
8
1
4
0
0
Placeofopenaccessnoorfew
limitations
16
7
0
0
12
19
5
1
3
1
2
Placeslackingcontrolbyindividuals
15
7
11
44
0
0
Placesgovernedbyopenforum
doctrine
12
6
1
4
3
5
1
2
Idealizedspacenophysicalform
5
2
3
12
1
2
1
Places
forpeop
le/pu
blic
byuse**
5
8
3
2
Placesma
de
bythepu
blic/p
ublic
sweatequity**
8
13
8
Numberofarticles/interviews
218
25
63
17
17
14
6
9
*Multipledefinitionsarepossible.Itisalsopossiblepeopleofferednodefinition.
**Definitionsfrominterviewswithparticipants,butnotidentifiedintheliteratue.
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Lynn A. Staeheli and Don Mitchell: Locating the public in research and practice 803
Table7
Impotanceofpublicspace
*
Number
articles
%ArticlesN
umber
acad.
int.
%of
acad.
int.
Total
siteints.
%Siteint.
NewYork
San
Diego
SantaFe
Syracuse
Washington
Functionalimportancew
alking,
meetingplace
72
33
2
8
9
14
0
0
6
3
0
Socialization,behaviormodification,
discipline
66
30
1
4
1
2
0
1
0
0
0
Democracy,politics,socia
l
movements,etc.
65
30
8
32
13
21
3
2
1
1
6
Sitesofcontest
51
23
4
16
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Sitesofidentityformation
35
16
6
24
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Placeforfun,vitality,urbanity,
spiritofcity
33
15
3
12
7
11
3
2
1
1
0
Buildingcommunity/socia
lcohesion
32
15
8
32
17
27
9
0
6
2
0
Sitesofidentityaffirmatio
n
30
14
6
24
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Livingspace(eg,forhomeless
people)
26
12
3
12
4
6
1
3
0
0
0
Justice**
0
0
3
12
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Pu
blicgoo
d***
0
0
0
0
2
3
0
0
0
0
0
Greenspace***
0
0
0
0
4
6
3
0
1
0
0
Psychic,spiritua
lgoo
d***
0
0
0
0
4
6
2
0
2
0
0
Economicdeve
lopment***
0
0
0
0
6
10
0
6
0
0
0
Numberofarticles/interviews
218
63
17
17
14
6
9
*Multiplecommentsarepossible.Somerespondentsmaynothavesaidwhyitwasimportant.
**Offeredbyacademicin
terviewees,butnotinliteratureor
bysiterespondents.
***Offeredbysiterespondentsbutnotidentifiedintheliteratureoracademicinterviews.
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804 Progress in Human Geography 31(6)
the uneven numbers of people interviewed
and who spoke about publicity in each case
study, direct comparisons are rather difficult,
although they do provide a rough indication
of the importance of particular definitions
and meanings in each of the controversies.
We are more interested, then, in the relativeimportance of the different definitions of-
fered by the participants, than we are in the
absolute numbers.
As with the research literature and re-
search interviews, defining public space in
terms of physical attributes (17%), relative
openness (19%), and as a meeting place (17%)
is common (see Table 6). But the single most
common definition among our public space
interviewees was defining public space in
terms of ownership (24%). The academicliterature, by contrast, turned up instances
of public space being defined by ownership
in only 11% of the articles, and was raised in
only 12% of the academic interviews. Simi-
larly, our site interviews yielded definitions
related to community (14%) far more frequ-
ently than did the literature (8%) or academic
interviews (8%). Finally, it was relatively com-
mon in our site interviews for public space to
be defined in terms of a space made through
the sweat equity of the public (13%), a defin-ition that did not appear at all in the other two
sources.10
Despite these definitional differences,
there are also clear similarities. While site
interviewees tended to conceptualize the
importance of public space more strongly in
terms of community than either the academic
literature or the academic interviews, and
while academics tended to focus more on
issues of democracy than community, both
sets of respondents (and the literature) foundaspects of the sociability of public space
to be important. And yet the differences
are telling. None of the participants in the
controversies defined public space in terms
of display, danger, lacking control, or as a
space of surveillance, all keywords in the
critical geography literature and among geo-
graphers who would likely adopt that label.
No participants in the site interviews dis-
cussed the importance of public space in terms
of identity formation or affirmation, both
of which were important to the researchers
we interviewed. In addition, the participants
had little use for the more conceptual or
theoretical definitions of public space; theydid not talk about space in the abstract or
public space as a foundation for the public
sphere, as was the case in the literature and
our interviews with researchers.
It would be incorrect, however, to infer
that participants in the controversies were
less capable of or less likely to talk about
public space conceptually. For instance,
many people discussed public space as a site
of community or democracy. Others talked
about public spaces as spaces of spiritualityand about public space as a site where the
public good could be achieved. Still others
talked about public space almost in the
same sense as Lefebvre (1996) as spaces
constructed and imbued with meaning be-
cause the publicmade the space what it was.
There was a lot of critical theory expressed
in our interviews with participants in public
space controversies, albeit in a language
that was rather different from that used by
academics.
2 Differences among cases
There are interesting and important differ-
ences among cases, however, that are also
important. Our focus in New York City, for
instance, was on community gardens, which
were built by residents in (predominantly)
low-income neighborhoods on property
that was essentially squatted by gardeners;
they claimed the space for the gardens even
though the property was owned by the citygovernment (see Staeheli et al., 2002). We
were drawn to the gardens because of the
controversy that erupted when then-Mayor
Rudolph Giuliani tried to auction the garden
lands to developers, thereby threatening
the gardens and displacing the gardeners.
While we tried to interview city officials, many
were reluctant to speak with us (although
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Lynn A. Staeheli and Don Mitchell: Locating the public in research and practice 805
we did interview representatives of the
Department of Housing Preservation, the
Parks Department, and the citys Green
Thumb community garden support pro-
gram). As a result, most of our interviews
were with gardeners and their supporters.
Their definition of public space very muchfocused on spaces that were owned by the
city, but that were actively made public by
people coming together, creating gardens
out of wasteland, and thereby building spaces
in which communities were forged. Many
respondents noted that the gardens were
the site of nascent political mobilization,
although most people who talked about this
did not ascribe these mobilizations to public
space, per se. Rather, the gardens which
happened to be on publicly-owned property provided a venue for gathering and it was
in the gathering that political mobilizations
began to take hold. Public space, then, was a
tool or a resource that was utilized in the for-
mation of a sense of public-ness of publicity
among the activists, but it was not a source
orwell-spring of publicity in and of itself. The
activists emphasized, as well, that they were
the ones who made the space public and
indeed who made the spaces meaningful for
the public; the spaces did not pre-exist aspublic spaces.
Our respondents in Santa Fe also empha-
sized public space as a place where people
gathered, but they talked about public space
as very much related to physical places that
were made by government, rather than about
places made by the people; in this way, the
Plaza in Santa Fe was quite different from
the community gardens. Even with that dif-
ference, however, people in Santa Fe also
talked about the importance of public spacein terms of its role in providing a space for
community and sociability (see Mitchell and
Staeheli, 2005b). Our respondents in New
York and Santa Fe were the only people in all
of our interviews and our reading who ascribed
a spiritual importance to public space. Indeed,
one of our respondents organized a gathering
with a shaman to purge the Santa Fe Plaza of
evil and racist spirits that spoiled the sacred
nature of the public spaces and of the people
who occupied it.
These first two examples suggested the
importance of public space for community,
and at least in New York, as a space of politics.
The respondents in San Diego and Syracuse,however, were rather different. In San Diego,
we were interested in the ways that home-
less people who often use public space as
their living space were treated in the eco-
nomic redevelopment of the historic areas
of the city (see Mitchell and Staeheli, 2006).
In a sense we were interested in whether
homeless people were perceived to be, or able
to act as, part of the public. Because of that
interest, we did not ask people directly about
their definitions of public space, althoughsome people did define it without our asking.
For the most part, we asked whether certain
members of the public were excluded from
the redeveloped spaces; from there, it was
possible to make some inferences about our
interviewees definition of public space. In this
context, public space tended to be defined in
terms of ownership and accessibility, and in
terms of physical features, such as streets,
parks, and sidewalks. The importance of
public space was rather diffusely discussed,but the most common issues included the
ways in which public space served as living
or gathering space for homeless people and
how this contradicted its importance to
economic development and for creating vital,
urbane spaces. There are differences here
compared to the ways people discussed pub-
lic space in New York City differences that
may reflect our success in talking with both
advocates for homeless people and with
representatives of organizations workingfor economic development and further
gentrification of the historic district of San
Diego. In our San Diego interviews, com-
munity was not mentioned at all, except
by one respondent who believed that com-
munity was threatened by the presence of
homeless people, reflecting perhaps an idea
that the development of community and
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806 Progress in Human Geography 31(6)
a polity were not as relevant as promoting
urban development. How homeless people
fit into the public of San Diego was a question
that was not resolved, either through policies
regulating their presence in public space or
through public debate.
In Syracuse, a similar emphasis on eco-nomic development permeated our interviews
as we discussed the redevelopment of a mall
that was reliant on public subsidies. In this
case, public space was defined by participants
uniformly in terms of public ownership and
it was seen as being important because of
the functions that could be enacted there
functions such as walking, meeting, casual
interactions, and a certain latitude for both
deviant behaviors and political activity.
Public space was contrasted directly withprivately-owned, but publicly-accessible
spaces that might provide some of those
functions (walking, casual interactions) but
not others (deviant behavior, political actions).
What does not emerge in this accounting is as
interesting as what does. In this case, private
spaces were seen as being more conducive to
community formation and socialization to
the formation of a public precisely because
the mall owners could exclude people who
would potentially disrupt the sociability ofcommunity.11 At the same time, many of the
interviewees recognized that the nature of
the public formed in the mall was shaped by
both the rights of the property owner and the
main function of the space shopping (Staeheli
and Mitchell, 2006).
In Washington, we explored a classic
public space issue: protest. In this case, most
of our interviews were with people who used
public space as a site for protest or who were
involved in the regulation and managementof protest, or litigation over it (see Mitchell
and Staeheli, 2005a). As might be expected,
a very different picture emerged in terms of
what constitutes public space and its sig-
nificance than what we found in other cases.
In Washington, public space has a very specific
meaning to our respondents: government-
owned spaces that should be accessible with
few restrictions, and where public forum
doctrine guaranteeing rights to speech and
assembly was in force. Above all, according
to these respondents, public space was where
democratic freedoms were exercised and
sometimes tested. In a few cases, people
discussed this in terms of fostering a politicalcommunity, but most people talked about
the importance of individual rights. They also
talked about the various balancing acts in
which government owners had to engage,
both to protect individual rights in public
space and to maintain order. Sociability and
the political economy were not discussed
at all.
What should we make of these five case
studies exploring different kinds of public
space controversies? Without implying thatour interviewees were representative or that
all government officials, economic develop-
ment promoters, or citizen-activists would
take like positions on public space and its im-
portance, we are nonetheless struck by the
different ways that ideas of public and pub-
licity were invoked in the interviews. To some
degree, how people define public space and
emphasize its importance seems situational.
That is, within the context of a controversy
about economic development, respondentsseemed to draw on framings that saw the
public as a co-joined state-business entity,
whether they were promoters of economic
development or highly critical of it; when
discussing public subsidies of private mall
development, liberal-economist arguments
came to the fore, including among those
who sought to open up the mall for greater
political action; and in discussion of protest,
republican-virtue languages predominated,
particularly among the police we interviewedwho were charged with managing protest,
and who were often quite critical of protesters
tactics. As Table 8 summarizes, across the
cases the full range of Weintraubs categories
were drawn upon; within cases, however,
the discourse was much more focused and
depended on the issues at hand.
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Lynn A. Staeheli and Don Mitchell: Locating the public in research and practice 807
That is to say, as with our interviews
with public space researchers, definitions ofpublic space, the public, and publicity, and
discussions of their importance seem to be
contingent, not fixed. Weintraubs categories
are thus best seen as heuristics that allow us
to begin to question the degree of flexibility in
the discourse over public space and publicity
the degree to which discursive constructs are
a fluid resource ready to be deployed in debate
and struggle or the degree to which they
channel or shape understandings and perhaps
make meanings relatively incommensurable.Our respondents could fluently, and clearly,
shift the meaning of public in response to our
questions and in order to make a point about
the control and regulation of space. In common
usage, as in academic discourse, this flexibility
this multivalance of the term public can
be both a discursive resource and a source
of confusion or dissonance. Complexity of
terminology reflects the complexity of the
issues and the contentiousness of the politics
that often surround them.
V Implications for research and practice
As heuristics, Weintraubs categories allow
questions to be raised about the relationship
between academic research and the ways
it is or is not equivalent to the discourse at
large in the public. Table 9 brings together
the results from all our data sources. What
is significant is the degree that particular
framings of public are part of everyday en-gagement with the world in this case as
revealed through public space controversies
but not part of the conceptual lexicon of
public space researchers. At the same time,
it is apparent that scholars rarely work from a
singular framing of the public such as purely
liberal-economistic or purely Marxist-feminist
framings even when they seek to develop
normative political theories about what public
space and publicityshouldbe.
The point is not necessarily to changeacademic language, or to seek to reform pub-
lic discourses (as if that was so simple), but
rather to understand the different framings
at work when the public, publicity, and public
space are invoked. The point is to understand
how and why these differences matter. If the
range of definitions at work across our cases is
at all indicative, then the fact that the public
or lay language of publicity and public space
draws on a larger set of discursive framings
than does academic geographys discourseabout publicity and public space is an important
finding. It is important empirically because it
suggests new avenues of research, such as
how popular understandings of the public as
the government are translated into specific
spatial outcomes, or conversely how different
characteristics of space reinforce such liberal-
economistic framings in everyday life. It is also
Table 8
Classification of public
New York:
Community
Gardens
San Diego:
Redevelopment
Santa Fe:
Plaza
Syracuse:
Shopping
Mall
Washington,
DC: Protest
Liberal-economistic:
Public is state
Not
mentioned
Not mentioned Not
mentioned
Primary
emphasis
Primary
emphasisRepublican virtue:
Public is polity
Primary
emphasis
Not mentioned Primary
emphasis
Not
mentioned
Primary
emphasis
Sociability: Public is
representation
Not
mentioned
Not mentioned Secondary
emphasis
Not
mentioned
Not
mentioned
Marxist-feminist:
Public is market
and state
Not
mentioned
Primary
emphasis
Not
mentioned
Not
mentioned
Not
mentioned
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808 Progress in Human Geography 31(6)
important because it suggests that there are
othernormative framings of public space thanthose on which geographers have heretofore
concentrated.
Understanding the range of framings at
large in the public, and their relation to
academic framings, likewise points to the
perhaps obvious point that the same words
and concepts can be interpreted in very dif-
ferent ways depending on a host of contin-
gent factors, including the nature of the spe-
cific issues at hand (eg, redevelopment vs.
community gardening, or protest vs. publicsubsidy of publicly accessible private pro-
perty). Though perhaps obvious, such a focus
on contingency within overall discursive and
material structures is crucial for understand-
in g why both academics and lay people
understand publicity and public space in the
ways that they do. In the never-ending desire
to increase geographys public relevance,
such attention to contingency is vital. Yet at
the same time, our interviews with particip-
ants in public space controversies showed usthat they were often eager to hear how we
conceptualized public space and the public.
They saw us, not infrequently, as a resource
perhaps not one they would seek out in the
midst of a political struggle, but at least within
the opportunities created by the interview
for deepening their own understandings or
seeing public space and its importance anew.
The crucial issue here is that definitional
differences matter. They matter becausethey form the basis from which social agents
academic, activist, policy-making, or political
attempt to intervene in the spaces of the city
in order to achieve particular normative goals.
They are often, thus, precisely the basis for
conflict, since they indicate the ineluctably
political nature of the meaning of the public,
publicity and public space. How people
understand the meaning and importance
of public, publicity and public space sets the
terms for the kinds of democracy and citizen-ship at stake in public controversies and
how that might be achieved within actually-
existing democracy (Fraser, 1990).
It is therefore important to understand
that, while def initions of public space and
publicity vary with different positions and
assumptions,usagevaries too. People struggling
through specific public space controversies,
and academics seeking to make sense of
those, are often flexible in their usage of
public, public space, publicity, and the like,even as that flexibility is necessarily shaped
by well-worn discursive channels. Weintraubs
categories are both an empirical description
of political theory and, we suggest, an accur-
ate representation of the taken-for-granteds
in public discourse. Drawing on seemingly
commonsense notions of the public as the
state, or as the people, or on publicity as
Table 9
Classification of
public
Academic
Research
Academic
Interviews
New
York
San
Diego
Santa Fe Syracuse Washington
Liberal-
economistic:
Public is state
Primary
emphasis
Primary
emphasis
Republican virtue:
Public is polity
Primary
emphasis
Primary
emphasis
Primary
emphasis
Primary
emphasis
Primary
emphasis
Sociability: Public
is representation
Primary
emphasis
Primary
emphasis
Secondary
emphasis
Marxist-feminist:
Public is market
and state
Secondary
emphasis
Primary
emphasis
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Lynn A. Staeheli and Don Mitchell: Locating the public in research and practice 809
sociability, allows for the making of points
and staking out of positions (even as it tends
to reproduce exactly these commonsense
notions). This is not necessarily a handicap,
but rather reflects both the complexity of the
issues and ideas, and the exigencies of the
moment. Understanding how and why spe-cific usages are employed at particular mo-
ments is an essential clue to the different
assumptions and positions people hold.
As such, a crucial implication of the analy-
sis presented here is that any analysis of how
and why specific usages are employed must
be wedded to an analysis of the relative
ability to act on the normative visions and
politics that different definitions of the public
invoke. For example, that police officers and
agencies charged with regulating protestunderstand publicity through something like
a republican-virtue model is important, for
this is a drastic change from even a generation
ago (eg, Marx, 1998). Understanding how they
interpret that model is even more important.
Most important, yet, is an analysis of how
and how they arenot able to implement their
version of publicity-through-protest. It is an
important analysis, as protest policing has
been regularized through what is called a
negotiated public order management system(McPhailet al., 1998), such that the police
have the power to guide organizers along a
path acceptable to the political authorities
(Fillieule and Jobard, 1998: 78); through this
power, they exert control over public space and
implement a normative vision that enforces a
particular conceptualization of the public and
publicity.
The people involved in debates over pub-
licity and actions in public space just what
locates the public are positioned differentlyin relation to social power. For those people or
social groups who are marginalized, finding a
space to be seen or heard, or simply tobe is vital
to their ability to develop a political subjectivity
and a sense of worthiness as a citizen; this is
important for themselves as political subjects
and to their struggles to gain recognition from
the state and the political community. How
they conceptualize publicity and the public,
thus, is vital to how andwhere they struggle
for recognition. Political communities have
different sources of social power that may
draw from their prior recognition, the con-
ferral of legitimacy, and their ability to organize
in ways that allow them to advance their ownpolitical and social goals. The state and eco-
nomic institutions have their own sources of
power, and as we have seen, may have their
own ways of conceptualizing publicity. Under-
standing these differences is important if we
as academics and as people who may hope to
contribute to particular visions of the public
are to contribute to debates that are public, in
all senses of that term.
AcknowledgementThis research was funded by National
Science Foundation grant BCS-9819828;
that support is greatly appreciated. Thanks
also to three anonymous referees and to
Pilar Palacia and her staff at the Villa Serbelloni
who made it possible to complete an earlier
draft of this article.
Notes1. The literature on the public, publicity, and public
space, of course, is far larger than that produced by
geographers. But it is also the case that geographic
research over the past generation has drawn on
an exceptionally wide range of political theory,
epistemological foundations, and ontological
starting points, and thus serves as a useful con-
densation of contemporary theorizing about the
public.
2. We selected researchers who have a PhD because
we assumed that their writing was more likely
to reflect their own thinking about publicity and
public space without the direct or guiding hand
of the advisor. We limited our focus to academics
working in the United States for reasons related
to the overall project rationale, which includedresearch on how academic work becomes rele-
vant within a particular national setting: see
Staeheli and Mitchell (2005).
3. The analogy is with privacy: privacy refers to the
conditions for and of being private; publicity refers
to the conditions for and of being public.
4. Weintraubs categories, it must be remembered,
are descriptive of the discourse, and thus some
who ascribe to particular discursive positionings
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810 Progress in Human Geography 31(6)
might not ascribe to the label Weintraub gives them.
Plenty of institutions many Christian churches, for
example figure the public as the state and econ-
omy and the private as the domestic and familial,
but cannot themselves be described as Marxist-
feminist. Weintraubs label reflects the fact that it
was primarily Marxist and feminist political theory
that named and brought to the fore this kind ofanalysis. The point is that the multiple meanings
or understanding of public in the theoretical and
the lay discourse is reflected in practice and that
the multiplicity of meanings confounds debates
over the public in public space research and in public
space controversies.
5. Much of the legal literature on civility in public
space works through this model. See, for example,
Eillickson (1996); Tier (1993); for a critique, see
Amster (2004).
6. Cluster analysis can be used to analyze cases in
this instance, articles that have been coded in a
series of yes/no variables. It then groups, or clusters,
cases together by the degree to which they share
definitions.
7. The coding process for the interview transcripts was
the same as it was for the literature.
8. With 25 interviews, we realize that the use of per-
centages may distort the impression of difference
in responses. We use the percentages here, so that
comparisons across the definitions from articles and
interviews can be made more easily.
9. Note that a total of 4 interviewees listed the
importance of public space as a site of contest (see
Table 4): that is to say, two researchers did not
include contestation as part of their operational
definition of public space, but did understand it aspart of its normative importance.
10. Some of our interviewees found our questions about
how to define public space silly. As one woman in
Santa Fe exclaimed, Its a plaza! Duh! Of course it
is public!, suggesting that on the ground the public-
ness of a space often seems self-evident.
11. Similar concerns were expressed by some of the
respondents in Santa Fe and San Diego, where they
noted that the easy accessibility to public spaces of
the Plaza or downtown by undesirable people
people who make them feel uncomfortable had
the effect of making a different segment of the
public feel unwilling to participate in public life.
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