Public Transportation as a ‘Major Problem with no Resolution’: Non-associativism and Public Contestation of Recklessness

Abstract

This paper discusses the conceptual limits of the notions of public problem and public arena. It is based on the results of a research on the criticism from users of public transportation in the city of Rio de Janeiro. In this context, non-associativism emerges as a form of collective action and the formation of abstract and dispersed publics. At the same time, the disorders related to the urban mobility service in Rio de Janeiro become extremely complex and routine in everyday life, forming a major public problem understood by the actors as an unsolvable phenomenon or one that does not have a solution.