A podcast of the PublicDemos project has been realised by Sean Sanders, PhD. for the Science Magazine in March 2022 with Nilüfer Göle, Sarah Dornhof, Nadia Fadil, Gökçe Tuncel and Boyan Znepolski, sponsored by the Nomis Foundation: https://www.science.org/content/webinar/public-space-democracy-project-reclamation-public-spaces-contemporary-democracy

The Public Space Democracy Project: The reclamation of public spaces in the contemporary democracy movement

In an increasingly digital age, citizens around the world are reclaiming their public spaces, known by many names, including public squares, agoras, maidans, and Euromaidans. Places of protest that are now part of the modern lexicon—Tahrir Square, Gezi Park, Tiananmen Square—have come to represent the emancipatory potential of public space in multicultural contexts.

This podcast explores the work of five contributors to the book Public Space Democracy: Performative, Visual and Normative Dimensions of Politics in a Global Age, which explores a historical turn in modern multicultural societies: the return of agoras, maidans, and of individuals reclaiming public space and experimenting together with new forms of plurality and collectivity.

Public Space Democracy is the embodiment of the Public Space Democracy (PublicDemoS) Project, an international and cross-cultural effort—supported by the NOMIS Foundation and led by Nilüfer Göle—to examine public space as a focus for the empowerment of this new movement. Through it, the participants hope to better understand the importance of public space democracy today, particularly in light of the rise of authoritarian populist regimes that limit the freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.

Listen in on this conversation with experts Nilüfer Göle, Boyan Znepolski, Nadia Fadil, Sarah Dornhof, and Gökçe Tuncel, moderated by Science/AAAS Director and Senior Editor for Custom publishing, Sean Sanders, as they discuss the subtleties of undertaking research into public spaces.