When: Thursday, 11 December 2025, 11:30 - 13:00
Where: Hörsaal 1 (H1), Department of Political Science, NIG, 2nd floor, Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Vienna
Speaker: Michael Saward (University of Warwick).
Moderation: Anna Wieder (Department of Political Science, University of Vienna), Anna Weithaler (Department of Political Science, University of Vienna)
Abstract:
This presentation explores a distinctive site of representative politics and its performance: the Square. The Square is a device for thinking about power and politics when the represented and representatives are physically co-present, such as in a city square or council chambers. The chapter brings ideas of participation and representation together. It argues that Hanna Pitkin’s inclusion of literal absence in her widely accepted definition of representation is misleading. Physical co-presence, virtual or remote co-presence, or an absence of co-presence are not central to the very meaning of representation. Evoking a sense of presence (Pitkin’s ‘in some sense’) through performing representative claims can and will occur in all these contexts including the face-to-face. The presentation examines key dimensions of power and disempowerment in the Square, and how physical co-presence highlights performance – positioning of self, others and material objects in space, the privileging of voice and movement, and so on. The analysis prompts issues of where and when claims to representation are, or can be, performed, and is intended to enhance our efforts to understand how context matters to the dynamics of political representation.
