Politicization as conflict, public and formatting

The article presents a new conceptualization of politicization as a process with three components: a conflict, a public, and formatting that renders the conflict recognizable to others. This conceptualization addresses current theory’s difficulties in recognizing emergent political action, especially when short lived or using unconventional forms of argumentation. Drawing on Laurent Thévenot’s and Judith Butler’s work, this formulation focuses especially on the notion of formatting, largely overlooked by prior accounts of politicization. Two ethnographic examples illustrate how formatting a conflict matters particularly amid fragile beginnings of politics, yet the three part conceptualization should be fruitful for analyzing any kind of emergent politics.