Introduction: rethinking the public

Abstract This chapter introduces the different topics covered by the book. By focusing in detail on different examples of the emergence of publics in diverse contexts, the book seeks to underscore the sense that the purpose of emphasising the variable qualities of publics is to keep in view that processes of assembling, convening, and summoning publics are always cross-cut by calculations, forces, and strategies which are resolutely political. The chapter elaborates on four related dynamics of the emergence of publics that the chapters in this book, taken together, draw into view as playing important roles in shaping the politics of public action: personalising publics, representing publics, mediating publics, and becoming public.