Public Authorities and Civic Actions Disentangled: Legibility and Scene Styles

Abstract

Recent developments in both urban governance arrangements and civil society organizations make the reciprocal influences between these two domains increasingly difficult to disentangle. Indeed, both hybrid civic organizations and neoliberal governments mean public administrations and civic actions cannot be assumed to be autonomous and separate spheres. This paper aims to overcome these difficulties by focusing on the scene styles that shape civic actions. Using the main results of an ethnographic study of three cases of third-sector groups and their relationships with public institutions, the paper illustrates how one can analyse two subtle effects: first, the influence public policies have on daily civic life and, second, the impact civic practices have on public policies. For the latter, the analysis will draw on the notion of “metaphorization” put forward by de Certeau to grasp how rules are always used differently from their formal definition. The category of scene styles fashions these uses and their implications, understood in terms of different action dilemmas. As far as the first of the aforementioned effects is concerned, the paper will show how certain scene styles are sustained by being particularly suited to the public conditions set by the ruling authorities, while other scene styles decline for the same reason. Overall, the discussion of the empirical results shifts the perspective on civil society from what it does to how it informally organizes itself in carrying out its actions, allowing complex public/civic relations to be analysed.