San Cristobal, Chiapas (Mexico)
all images by
giorgia aiello and irina gendelman
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San Cristobal, Chiapas (Mexico)
all images by
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In physical reality the agora is known as a public square where exchange of information occurs alongside the exchange of goods. In the traditional sense, citizens interact in the agora. They find an opportunity to hear one another and are provided a public space for social action. This Athenian agora is based on the principle of face-to-face interaction. As cyberspace has been touted to be the new "electronic agora" (Rheingold 1993, 14), it is necessary to consider the effects of implied physicality in this agora. To be sure, the ancient Greek public square was not a true neutral ground for all citizens. For example, slaves and women did not have equal chance to participate in the public places. To the present day, political and cultural conditions of a place are reflected in modern day agoras. The idea of Hebrmas' public sphere taking place in coffee shops and public squares has been heavily critiqued by feminist writers arguing that not all public places give equal access for participation to people of color and women (Fraser, 1993). A vital public space provides a civil society with an opportunity to create a normative image of individuals. Theories of social control and deviance are tied to acts of social interaction in constructing the self and the notions of "other" (Foucault, 1977). Foucault explains how visibility in the agora plays an important role in building and reflecting the cultural norms of that space. Scholars might ask what effect the absence of variant bodies in the electronic agora has on the way cyberspace is experienced. Gumpert and Drucker (1992, 1998) warn of the dangers of seeing the Internet as the surrogate public space to the disappearing agora in physical space. They warn that in the United States the elevation of security and privacy values and the rising fear of public space result in a preference for enclosed space to protect the inhabitants from public environments. Less controllable public life becomes undesirable and foreign to the US citizen. Instead, reaching out occurs through complex communication networks in controlled and often commodified public spaces or the privacy of the home. This discussion of the "electronic agora" is informed by the experience of U.S. citizens. Drinking water in the home of the Mexican taxi driver, it was obvious that the iRL Mexican agora may manifest itself in a very different manner. In real life, experience of textures, bodies, and texts vary culturally. Therefore, when we apply the metaphor of the agora to cyberspace, we need to consider how these cultural variations can enrich our scholarship. The social exchange that goes on in Seattle's Pike Place Market is sanctioned by the authority of a US city. For example, busking in Pike Place Market is not completely spontaneous (Miller, 2001, pg. 85). One must pay a fee to the Preservation and Authority Department to use official busking sites, designated on the pavement marked with a painted musical note. In order to be an actor in the agora, one must have filled out the correct paperwork and produced the ten dollars necessary to obtain permission to occupy a spot in the space. The interaction between cyberspace and physical space is also different. Whereas Gumpert and Drucker (1998) point to the introversion of U.S. citizens, which might manifest itself in checking email from the privacy of one's home or office. The interaction of cyberspace and physical space, however, manifests itself in different ways in the Mexican agora with public cybercafes acting as the most widely used portals into cyberspace. These cafes often have open doors to the outside and offer visibility and publicness to the users. Access to the "electronic agora" via cyberspace is inexpensive though still prohibitive to the poor. The cybercafes are still subject to the same problems of the public sphere, where diversity in class and gender are underrepresented, but the boundary between cyberspace and physical space is not as clearly defined as Gumpert and Drucker find when writing about American cities. Another difference we observed between US and Mexican iRL agoras, is the difference in spectacle. The performance of the Pike Place fishmongers is a world famous icon of Seattle. The piles of polished produce and the original market sign of the market are representations of Seattle's history and appeal to the tourist's sense of nostalgia and search for authenticity, while promising a safe and clean environment (Aiello and Gendelman, 2003). In the Mexican market the tourist often provides the spectacle as the outsider. Serving a much more utilitarian purpose, the fishmongers of the market in Tapachula swat away flies and practice an everyday business exchange rather than a performance to entertain the tourists. Merchants do not perform their authenticity in the Mexican market, as they do in Pike Place, and the tourist is an incidental, not a permanent, participant in the agora. We have pointed out some general cultural differences in Mexican and U.S. agoras. Nakamura (2002) discusses identities in cyberspace, suggesting strategies of how cyberspace can become a more inclusive agora. However, if cyberspace is the new agora, where are the buskers, the beggars, and the others who do not directly contribute to the exchange of the marketplace, but nevertheless exist among us? The "electronic agora" is a spectacle that is constrained. Nakamura (2002) racializes cyberspace, pointing out how certain norms are defined through organization and design. There is a level of unpredictability and variety that is missing in the discussion of the "electronic agora." Scholars' work on identity in cyberspace runs the risk of compartmentalization if we do not problematize the lack of unexpected and deeply varied encounters in the electronic agoras; encounters that take place differently in various cultures' physical agoras. As Mitra (1998) proposes, chaos, irrationality, and heated discussion of everyday life in the electronic agora are valuable and desirable and should be looked at in communication scholarship. Nakamura (2002) writes that discourse on race in cyberspace is culturally constructed and reinforced according to historical, social, and political contexts, as well as the absence or perceived absence of certain types of experience. Thus, discourse, as well as design, of cyberspace creates an experience that is potentially exclusive for those who are regarded as culturally other.
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