“Public Spheres Between Power and Discourse: Habermas and the Problem of Marginalized Agency,” Essay, MariJean Wegert.

In 2026, German philosopher and sociologist Jürgen Habermas passed away at the age of 96. Best known for his work on the public sphere, communicative action, and democratic legitimacy, Habermas influenced generations of scholars and helped shape contemporary thinking about democracy. To mark his life and work, writers associated with North Meridian Press are contributing a series of short essays examining both the importance and limitations of his thought. In this essay, MariJean Wegert explores the relationship between Habermas’s public sphere and the marginalized people whose labor, knowledge, and experiences have historically existed beyond its boundaries.

In the final hearing after the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died in May 2020 after a police officer knelt on his neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds. In his examination of the events surrounding George Floyd’s death, the prosecuting attorney, Steve Schleicher, pointed out that during the moments when the police officer, Derek Chauvin, knelt with his knee on Floyd’s neck, he took in the energy of the surrounding public, who were observing the incident, some with cameras, and calling out for him to let Floyd off the ground. According to Schleigher’s narrative, a passersby spoke to Floyd: “He said, “You can’t win. You can’t win.” And George Floyd replied, ‘I’m not trying to win…I’m scared.’ But the defendant [Chauvin] was trying to win. He wasn’t going to be told what to do. He wasn’t going to take a challenge to his authority. He was trying to win and George Floyd paid for it with his life” (22:44). 

Since Jurgen Habermas presented the theory of the public sphere in 1962, theoreticians and historians have used his model in their examination of public discourse. Beyond starting with the assumption of the public sphere as defined by Habermas, what if the discourses inside the public sphere could be examined externally? Since the physical space of the first “public spheres” were created for the bourgeois and sourced by the labor of exploited Black bodies, what if those bodies were centered instead? By consulting the voices who have been historically and economically outside the spheres of discourse, (beyond counterpublics even) we have the opportunity to examine the space around the constructs and re-map its contours. In this case, centering marginalized voices in an intersectional way in expansive relationship to Habermas’ defined sphere can find new ways to imagine what is possible.

Habermas uses the rise of the coffeehouse in Great Britain after the Revolutionary War and the salons in France post French Revolution where the bourgeois society would gather for discourse (Habermas 32). In this model, these circles of discourse (or the “public sphere”) were primarily “centers of criticism -- literary at first, then also political -- in which began to emerge, between aristocratic society and bourgeois intellectuals, a certain parity of the educated (Habermas 32). Habermas theorized that these spaces for discussion, rational argument, and exchange of sophisticated ideas were necessary for the development of a healthy society in a post-feudal system, where the discourse had been constrained to the elite who hold power. 

By looking into the physical structures of the spaces that constituted the public sphere, we can discover their edges: namely, the coffee house. These British coffee houses, which sold coffee to those who gathered, sourced it as an import from Haiti where Black laborers who were enslaved to grow coffee to ship to the salons and coffeehouses. The Haitian Revolution, which arose out of the desperation of the enslaved laborers, was sparked partly by the Haitian laborers learning of the French Revolution. Since the physical space of the first “public spheres” were created for the bourgeois and sourced by the labor of exploited Black bodies, what if those bodies and stories were centered?

Contemporary philosopher and Africologist Molete Asanti works outside of the confines of modern and postmodern explorations of Black voices and experience and begins instead with African experiences, forms, and wisdom traditions. He is particularly concerned with forms of discourse that do not assume a white-centric mode. Asanti explains how in religion and politics, the speaker, in the Eurocentric colonial mode, the goal seems to be to win and do so by being perceived as reasonable according to the Western, colonial definition of reason (Asanti 32). Asanti connects the use of language, particularly written, persuasive forms of discourse, to this assumption, recognizing that “By defining not only the terms of discussion but also the grounds upon which the discussion will be waged, the established order concentrates power in its own hands.” (Asanti 34). 

The expanding of Habermas’ social and political sphere of discourse, both in poesis and reclamation of agency, lies in giving power back to marginalized voices in such a way where they can be expressed not only through the mediums created by whiteness, but on their own terms, with their own modes of knowledge, using their own creativity, and with the fullness of their agency acknowledged. 

MariJean Wegert is an American poet, essayist, and professional ghostwriter based in Northern Indiana. Her creative writing explores the "poetics of place," blending ecology, myth, and deep connection to Midwestern cultural landscapes. Her debut collection of poetry, Water the Bones: A Liturgy for the Midwest, was published by North Meridian Press in 2024.

Works Cited

Asante, Molefi Kete. The Afrocentric Idea Revised and Expanded Edition. Temple University Press, 1998.

Habermas Jürgen, et al. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere an Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. MIT Press, 1991. 

“Prosecution Closing Argument Full Transcript: Derek Chauvin Trial For Murder of George Floyd.” Rev, www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/prosecution-closing-argument-full-transcript-derek-chauvin-trial-for-murder-of-george-floyd. 

Warner, M. “Publics and Counterpublics.” Public Culture, vol. 14, no. 1, 2002, pp. 49–90., doi:10.1215/08992363-14-1-49.