Theorizing the “Public”—Recognizing Ephemeral and Migrating Publics and the Educative Agent

Abstract

As the parameters of social mobility decrease in light of COVID 19, we are turning away from the global to smaller iterations of community. These communities have always been there, but our collective gaze has, over a long period of time, persistently turned outward. Taking the term public, this article examines how iterations of the public realm reveal authority and the circulation of knowledge. We suggest two instances of the public realm “ephemeral” and “migrating” to draw attention to the inherent possibilities for communities to speak on their own authority. In so doing, this article draws on Hannah Arendt, Michel Foucault, and Nancy Luxon to offer a particular theoretical framework to recognize the appearance of what we term the educative agent. We are concerned with who has the authority and can enact the self as a speaking subject. We argue that power is increasingly standing in place of authority. A new concept is offered, that of the educative agent, which highlights the possibilities of the public. To understand how a sense of authority can be reinstated and recognized, we look to the work of Luxon.