The "citizen-functionary" in Antonio Gramsci's Prison Notebooks

Abstract

This contribution aims to analyse an important category from Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks: the citizen-functionary. Between 1930 and 1933, the prisoner is confronted with a number of questions concerning fascism and the realisation of communist society through this category. This article will explore the origins and evolution of this analysis. Initially, the category of citizen-functionary was concerned solely with the active reproduction of the state’s social programme, but it later lost its implicit negative connotations and became an interpretative category. In this sense, it acquires a special status in the re-signification of politics and the tendency to break down the distinction between the public and private spheres. This demonstrates the category’s progressive theoretical shifts. Finally, we outline some theoretical considerations on the possible political perspectives contained in these developments.