City Research Online

Abstract

This article provides a critical analysis of Luc Boltanski and Arnaud Esquerre’s The Making of Public Space: News, Events and Opinions in the Twenty-First Century (2025 [2022]). While their earlier work, Enrichment: A Critique of Commodities (2020 [2017]), is situated within economic sociology, their latest book – originally published as Qu’est-ce que l’actualité politique ? Événements et opinions au XXIe siècle (2022) – marks a significant shift towards political sociology, broadly conceived. The article contends that The Making of Public Space represents a highly original contribution that will further consolidate the considerable influence of Boltanski and Esquerre’s collaborative work on cutting-edge debates and research agendas in the contemporary social sciences. In particular, the book makes a strong case for examining the relationship between processes of “turning into current affairs” [processus de mise en actualité] and processes of politicization [processus de politisation]. The analysis is structured in two main parts. The first part summarizes the central arguments advanced by Boltanski and Esquerre in The Making of Public Space. The second part offers a careful assessment of the book’s principal limitations and suggests possible ways to address them.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	All articles published in the BJCT are published and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed.
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) J Political Science > JA Political science (General)
Departments:	School of Policy & Global Affairs School of Policy & Global Affairs > Department of Sociology & Criminology
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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