The modern agoras - the relationship between urban open public space and political expression. The case study of the city of Poznań, Poland

Abstract

Contemporary urban public open spaces are stages of political expression, reminiscent of the historical Greek agoras which performed similar functions thousands of years ago. What has clearly changed, however, is the form of political expression. Rather than individual speeches by ancient thinkers and politicians, we increasingly deal with collective protests and assemblies presenting the views of the communities involved. Nowadays public assemblies also take place in a much larger number of public spaces, depending on the needs. They are chosen on the basis of 3 main categories of factors: spatial, semiotic and reception-related, which may overlap. The main objective of this paper is to determine the role of urban public open spaces as places of expression of political views during public assemblies. The study was based on the analysis of data from the Municipality of Poznań, as well as individual in-depth interviews with people involved in the organisation of public assemblies in Poznań in 2019 and representatives of local associations.