Abstract
In this paper, the notion of public subjectivity is regarded as a mediating concept to analyse the processes of self and society construction. In a first analytical move, the emergence of the public subject is discussed as a result of the processes of rationalization and social structuring, both of society as well as of the modes of subjective production, which excluded certain specific subjects from the construction of the common. In a second analytical move, results from empirical research on young people's social and political participation are presented in order to analyse displacements to this model of public subjectivity, when different elements, both societal and subjective, are introduced in the scenario of the production of the common and its impasses. The importance of these transformations for the reinvention of democracy is remarked.
Keywords:
public subjectivity; youth; common