26 Public Private Spaces

Ms. Gaana Nair

epgp books

 

 

Introduction: To understand what public and private spaces are, let us begin with a discussion of the concept of space. Space is not merely physical, territorial or geographical. It is, to begin with, socially constructed. Space can only be conceived and comprehended in it being occupied. That is, space is conceptual; its meaning is made through a complex set of social relations mediated by cultural, political and economic contexts. Consider for example the following images of a classroom:

Image 1; 2; 3

Image 1 Description:

Here is an image of a classroom with several facilities. It is a spacious classroom which can seat several students quite comfortably.

Image 2 Description:

 

On the other hand, this image of a classroom that could represent nearly nay of the classrooms in government schools with barely any infrastructure shows walls that are seeping, few benches to accommodate several students.

Image 3 Description:

Yet another kind of a classroom is the online digital classroom that has no physical presence of a teacher but one made present digitally and accessible at any time.

In all of these images, our understanding of the space of ‘classroom’ is dependent on several other contexts: the kind of school; the educational infrastructure; the medium of teaching etc. Although the space of ‘classroom’ is conceived as one where teaching- learning happens in an institutional set-up, the kind of teaching- learning, the economic contexts of the institution etc play a major role in our understanding of this space. Hence, space is a socially constructed concept mediated by several contexts.

Experiencing Space:

Yet another important aspect of space is that each subject experiences spaces differently. A woman’s experience of space is not the same as that of a man, or a transgender. A differently- abled subject lives and experiences spaces differently.

Look at the following images (differently-abled; gender etc)

Image 4: Women in mosque

Image 5: Differently abled

In each of these images the same space is lived and experienced differently by different subjects.

Reflect on how these individuals’ experience of the space differs.

Quick check questions:

1)What does it mean for women to not pray along with men in religious spaces? How do they experience the place of worship differently?

2)Does making spaces easily accessible for the physically challenged reflect being sensitive to physically-challenged people? Or is there more to understanding the discourse of these public spaces? Discuss.

2.Public and Private Spaces:

2.1. Introduction:

Space is generally classified as public and private spaces. However, this is not a binary that is stable. It is never clear where the public ends and the private begins (or the other way round). Like we discussed earlier in the context of ‘space’ the ‘publicness’ and the privacy of a space is configured through negotiations of social, cultural and economic relations as they are lived spaces. Consider the example of a hotel. This is a public space that is open and accessible to a large section of the society. However, the public space of the hotel changes to a private one with individuals occupying rooms. The hotel, then, is characterized by both public and private depending on the purpose and function served by the space classified as a ‘hotel’.

2.2. Public Spaces:

Public are those spaces open and accessible to people. Cinemas, malls, parks, museums, roads, public transport services, government offices among several others are examples of public spaces. The significant aspect of public spaces is that the experience of living the public spaces will determine and is determined by several other discourses like that of the nation-state, citizen subject, questions of gender and sexuality etc.,. These discourses are constructed in and through other discursive public spaces like newspapers, festivals, sporting events among others.

Look at these images.

Image 6: Cricket fan

Image 7: Indian Army

Image 8: Women’s development

In all these images, different public spaces — that is sport, defence, governmental policies — construct specific kinds of Indian subjects: an ardent Indian cricket fan whose love for the nation is represented through their love the sport and the sporting nation; a patriotic Indian citizen who serves the country and safeguards the nation from foreign intrusions; a woman subject of the nation who is being taken care of by the nation. Thus these public spaces are producing and constructing certain kinds of subjects.

(Images of cheering for India, Army/Navy ad; women’s development)

Let us look at other public spaces. A mall, for example, is a public space that is accessed by people. However, in reading the mall and how they are lived and experienced, they also provide us with discourses of the changing face of consumption, the mall as a typically urban phenomenon signalling a condition of (post)modernity.

What about the museum, for example? The museum functions as a public space that serves to reconstruct/restructure the history of our past made available as information in books but a space of artefact. What the museum does is not just provide information but construct cultures in certain ways. The experience of this construction has certain implications too. Think about how we look at the artefacts exhibited in the museum in awe of their survival into the present. Reflect on how you can physically see the objects, but very rarely feel its materiality (most often they are accompanied by ‘do not touch’ signs).

While malls, parks and museums are spaces visited by the public, TV newspapers are spaces where public opinion is shaped, challenged and critiqued. Let us look at the example of the upcoming general elections. The newspapers carry not merely news of the elections but also advertisements about having to exercise one’s right to vote. While this is a means to encourage the adult population to vote, it also tells us that we cannot exercise our right without a valid symbol that narrates that we are indeed a registered voter eligible to cast our vote. Not everybody can exercise their vote but only one who is registered as a voter. This makes the public space of universal adult franchise a right but only through legitimate markers of eligibility.

This brings us to an important aspect of public spaces: Accessibility. Although technically, public spaces are conceived as spaces that are open to all, public spaces are wrought by restrictions of several kinds. All public spaces are not open social spaces regardless of gender, age or socioeconomic levels. To go back to the example of the mall, Rachel Bowlby, a significant cultural critic, has observed that women visit shopping malls more because they serve as respectable spaces to go to without a male companion. This observation draws our attention to a gendered spatial experience of malls. Similarly, on a closer look at several other examples, one sees how several entries are restricted and is not after all open and accessible to all. While a MacD’s outlet is positioned inside the mall, a street hawker selling peanuts/panipuri is not allowed entry into the malls. Religious spaces also exercise certain restrictions with regard to accessing public spaces: women are not allowed into a mosque; non-Hindus are not allowed to enter the sanctum of certain temples.

Surveillance, scrutiny and Policing:

Another important aspect of public spaces is that is it subject to scrutiny and policing. Take a look at the no smoking signs and trespassers will be prosecuted signs. On committing this prohibited activity, a subject is consequently subject to punishment. Increasing surveillance in public spaces closely linked to fear of threats. Public spaces and the culture of fear are closely related. Reflect on how we are now in a time when we welcome surveillance like security checks and CCTV surveillances post 9/11 invoking the security/safety rhetoric which was otherwise looked at as an intrusion into one’s privacy.

Public spaces should not merely considered as spaces outdoors. The public space is also present digitally. This leads to an important argument about public spaces today: the non materiality of spaces also play an important role in understanding social relations. Consider the recent digital forum of the Aam Aadmi Party to address problems of the Delhi citizens had thrown up a huge furore in understanding the reconfiguration of public space of the Janata Darbar. It was criticised that although this was an innovative way of handling the problems, it raised crucial questions of accessibility and reaching the government, for instance.

Private Space

Private space is characterized by the personal and the intimate. Private spaces are largely individualized as opposed to public spaces that have a collective meaning shared by a group of people visiting and utilizing these spaces to make meanings and negotiate social relations. Private space is that space recognized as psychologically their own. There is always a great sense of discomfort when one’s personal space is encroached upon. Private spaces also have their own rules and norms that are either individual or collectively shared. Notions of punishments also work differently.

Public-Private inte rface:

The distinctions between the public and private are not always clear. For example, although the mall is public space, it is characterized by the subjects bringing their private desires and projecting them on a public domain. Consider trying on clothes, clicking ‘selfies’ and uploading them on facebook and still choosing not to buy the apparel for instance. Shopping is therefore a pleasurable and leisure activity that is associated with questions of affordability, social and gender roles. Consumption here becomes a private affair exercised in the public domain.

There are also instances of private experiences in a public space. Very often when we travel, we find travellers listening to music. This is a typical example of not living the city through the public space that it is, but instead through a private experience of listening to music. Another example is a mobile phone user having a private conversation while in a bus, ignoring the presence of other people who constitute the public space.

One can also see how private spaces are transformed into public spaces in the name of development and infrastructure. This is typical of the many infrastructural projects that the government comes up with at the cost of life and property of inhabitants of the place. This invokes discourses of development- induced displacement of peoples thus reducing private spaces for public use.

An interesting dimension of the public-private interface is gossip. Gossip is the public circulation of the private. Look at the life of celebrities and other public figures. Their personal, private matters are now in circulation in public spaces. The Ranbir-Katrina holiday in Ibiza recently was caught on camera and circulate din the media adding speculations about their relationship. Quite likewise, the Wikileaks serve as an interesting illustration of the public-private distinction being nebulous. Similarly, experiences that are private – traumas, pleasures, scandals – are no longer completely private. Dalit self- narratives for instance thrive on making the private suffering public and transforming them into testimonies of trauma in the public domain.

you can view video on Public Private Spaces

Reference:

  • Baldwin, Elaine. Introducing Cultural Studies. New York: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2004.
  • Barker, M. & Beezer, A. Reading into Cultural Studies. London: Routledge, 1992.
  • Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. London: Paladin, 1973.
  • Bowlby, Rachel. Carried Away: The Invention of Modern Shopping. Columbia: Columbia University Press, 2002.
  • Collins, Richard. et al. ed. Media Culture and Society: A Critical Reader. London: Sage, 1986.
  • Docker, John. Postmodernism and Popular Culture: A Cultural History. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994.
  • During, Simon.ed. The Cultural Studies Reader. London: Routledge, 1993.
  • Fiske, John. Understanding Popular Culture. Boston, MA: Unwin Hyman, 1989.
  • Fiske, John. Reading the Popular. Boston, MA: Unwin Hyman, 1989.
  • Modleski, Tania. ed. Studies in Entertainment: Critical Approaches to Mass Culture. Bloomington, UN: Indiana University Press, 1986.
  • Williams, Raymond. Television: Technology and Cultural Form. New York: Schocken Books, 1995.

Image 1: Posh classroom (http://www.careeranna.com/first- month-experience-at- iim- indore- purva- vijayvergiya/)

Image 2: Government school classroom: (http://edtechindia.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/dscn0359.jp g)

 

Image 3: Digital Classroom: (http://bytesandbanter.blogspot.in/2012/08/Coursera-vs- Udacity.html)

 

Image 4: women in mosque: (http://chrisinbrnocr.blogspot.in/2010/11/blue- mosque.html)

 

Image 5: Differently abled: ((Image from http://www.google.co.in/imgres?client=firefox beta&sa=X&rls=org.mozilla%3AenUS%3Aofficial&channel=sb&biw=1024&bih=639&tbm=isch&tbnid=NQ0HRT9q- 6f3hM%3A&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Farchives.dailynews.lk%2F2011%2F07%2F15%2F fea03.asp&docid=xhhjxi9O9Nt_SM&imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Farchives.dailynews.lk%2F20 11%2F07%2F15%2Fz_p09 dif.jpg&w=324&h=309&ei=epDTUpCIMsrarAfQ1YGQBQ&zoom=1&ved=0CHwQhBww Dw&iact=rc&dur=557&page=2&start=13&ndsp=16))

(Image from http://www.google.co.in/imgres?client=firefox- beta&sa=X&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen- US%3Aofficial&channel=sb&biw=1024&bih=639&tbm=isch&tbnid=qZT8dgMxajo96M%3A&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fabilitykhabarnama.blogspot.c om%2F2013%2F02%2Facccesability- hopes-of-differently-

abled.html&docid=kO72VHVFxtLULM&imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fnewindia nexpress.com%2Fincoming%2Farticle1461078.ece%2FALTERNATES%2Fw 460%2FDisabled- people.jpg&w=460&h=286&ei=epDTUpCIMsrarAfQ1YGQBQ&zoom=1&v ed=0CM4CEIQcMFI&iact=rc&dur=656&page=5&start=65&ndsp=18)

Image6: Indiacricketfan:

http://www.google.co.in/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia.emirates247.com%2Fimag es%2F2013%2F06%2FIcc%2F1.JPG&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.emirates247.com %2Fsports%2F2.616%2Findia-vs-pakistan-cricket- fans-go-crazy- in-stands-2013-06-15- 1.510444&h=2146&w=3200&tbnid=oauppjRXgwO- WM%3A&zoom=1&docid=FZCMcLjWejtaDM&ei=DHdHU4nwHMGKrQeJ4IC4BQ&tbm =isch&ved=0CLABEIQcMBw&iact=rc&dur=632&page=2&start=16&ndsp=20

Image 7: Indian army:

http://www.google.co.in/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fim.rediff.com%2Fnews%2F2012 %2Fapr%2F16army1.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rediff.com%2Fnews%2Fslide- show%2Fslide-show-1-the-tragedy-of-the-indian army%2F20120418.htm&h=350&w=580&tbnid=Ln9D7r8M18oEVM%3A&zoom=1&docid =Q7VqUcmq- 8YaiM&ei=CXdHU8P7Js2TrgfE44DADw&tbm=isch&ved=0CIwBEIQcMAw&iact=rc&du r=1040&page=2&start=11&ndsp=21