Reading Notes: Fraser, "Rethinking The Public Sphere"
Fraser: "Public sphere of discourse and association" being conflated with the state apparatus leads to authoritarianism.
Feminists tend to overuse the phrase to mean "Everything that is outside the domestic or familiar sphere" which is not what Habermas meant at all. (110)
"not an arena of market relations but rather one of discursive relations" (111) I'm… not sure that lines up entirely with what Habermas actually said?
Renders states accountable to some fraction of the citizenry.
Criticisms say that public sphere was constructed specifically as exclusionary. Class, gender, and so on. Interestingly Habermas talked about this, although maybe not as much. The really interesting bit here is that "a discourse of publicity touting accessibllity, rationality, and the suspension of status hierarchies is itself deploted as a strategy of distinction." (115) Now we are getting somewhere critique-wise! This lacuna on his part obscures the existence of other public spheres that allowed in women, or those that were composed of the working class.
Gender politics are privatized.
"the bourgeois public was never _the_ public" (116) --- here come the counterpublics! Okay, she reads Habermas as saying there were only competing publics from like 1860 on, while she says always. I likeher read here. This reminds me of… shit, that paper from Informatics about working-class botanical societies meeting in pubs, where botany served as a boundary object in the conflict between publics.
"the official bourgeois public sphere is the institutional vehicle for a major historical transformation in the nature of political domination." (117)
Four Habermasian assumptions she doesn't like:
* That it's possible "to bracket status differentials" (117)
* That multiple competing publics is bad
* That "the appearance of private interests and private issues is always undesirable" (118) in a public sphere --- this makes a lot of sense, it's the same sort of stuff fuckers use to shut up minorities all the time
* That there should be "a sharp separation between civil society and the state" (118)
Bracketing status differentials benefits dominant groups and is bad for subordinates… Yup, no arguments here. She suggests that for a true participatory democracy, "systemic social inequalities [must] be eliminated." (121) Easier said than done, but, OK.
"In stratified societies, arrangements that accommodate contestation among a plurality of competing publics better promote the ideal of participatory parity than does a single, comprehensive, overarching public." (122)
feminism as a subaltern counterpublic. Huh!
…do "egalitarian, multicultural societies" exist? Can you show me one? Why are we talking about them? But I do agree that they still need more than one public. I just don't find that terribly useful to think about right now.
Ooh, now arguing about what counts as private. I like. Not everyone will agree about what is a concern to everyone. Can't assume a single overarching "we" ( which actually is sort of something Brown does, and may be a limitation of non-identitarian work).
"a sovereign parliament functions as a public sphere within the state" (134) They can both have opinions and make decisions, which makes them powerful. This is sort of not super explored but is interesting. Also page 137 has some suggestions about how this paper might be useful to looking at right now, which is awesome.
Also whoever scanned my copy of this article did it _really weird_
This entry was originally posted at http://rax.dreamwidth.org/91382.html.
Feminists tend to overuse the phrase to mean "Everything that is outside the domestic or familiar sphere" which is not what Habermas meant at all. (110)
"not an arena of market relations but rather one of discursive relations" (111) I'm… not sure that lines up entirely with what Habermas actually said?
Renders states accountable to some fraction of the citizenry.
Criticisms say that public sphere was constructed specifically as exclusionary. Class, gender, and so on. Interestingly Habermas talked about this, although maybe not as much. The really interesting bit here is that "a discourse of publicity touting accessibllity, rationality, and the suspension of status hierarchies is itself deploted as a strategy of distinction." (115) Now we are getting somewhere critique-wise! This lacuna on his part obscures the existence of other public spheres that allowed in women, or those that were composed of the working class.
Gender politics are privatized.
"the bourgeois public was never _the_ public" (116) --- here come the counterpublics! Okay, she reads Habermas as saying there were only competing publics from like 1860 on, while she says always. I likeher read here. This reminds me of… shit, that paper from Informatics about working-class botanical societies meeting in pubs, where botany served as a boundary object in the conflict between publics.
"the official bourgeois public sphere is the institutional vehicle for a major historical transformation in the nature of political domination." (117)
Four Habermasian assumptions she doesn't like:
* That it's possible "to bracket status differentials" (117)
* That multiple competing publics is bad
* That "the appearance of private interests and private issues is always undesirable" (118) in a public sphere --- this makes a lot of sense, it's the same sort of stuff fuckers use to shut up minorities all the time
* That there should be "a sharp separation between civil society and the state" (118)
Bracketing status differentials benefits dominant groups and is bad for subordinates… Yup, no arguments here. She suggests that for a true participatory democracy, "systemic social inequalities [must] be eliminated." (121) Easier said than done, but, OK.
"In stratified societies, arrangements that accommodate contestation among a plurality of competing publics better promote the ideal of participatory parity than does a single, comprehensive, overarching public." (122)
feminism as a subaltern counterpublic. Huh!
…do "egalitarian, multicultural societies" exist? Can you show me one? Why are we talking about them? But I do agree that they still need more than one public. I just don't find that terribly useful to think about right now.
Ooh, now arguing about what counts as private. I like. Not everyone will agree about what is a concern to everyone. Can't assume a single overarching "we" ( which actually is sort of something Brown does, and may be a limitation of non-identitarian work).
"a sovereign parliament functions as a public sphere within the state" (134) They can both have opinions and make decisions, which makes them powerful. This is sort of not super explored but is interesting. Also page 137 has some suggestions about how this paper might be useful to looking at right now, which is awesome.
Also whoever scanned my copy of this article did it _really weird_
This entry was originally posted at http://rax.dreamwidth.org/91382.html.