The Experts’ Self-Representation. They Mirror Themselves in the Perceptions of the Non-Experts Public(s)

Several crisis events rapidly succeed one another, often overlapping, determining a permacrisis, a prolonged period of instability and insecurity due to the transition from one crisis to another (Wright, 2022; Zatti, 2024). The COVID-19 pandemic, geopolitical conflicts, and climate change are all multiple and permanent crisis events that generate uncertainty among individuals. In these circumstances, experts put their expertise at disposal, to inform and prepare citizens disoriented by unforeseen phenomena they do not understand (Dayè, 2020). Furthermore, the experts make their expertise available to decision-makers, offering practical solutions to challenging problems that destabilise the community's everyday life (Bulsei, 2017). The research topic presented in this paper is the relationship between the experts and their non-expert public(s). Empirical research has been conducted on the self-representation of the expert, delving into how experts feel their non-expert public(s) perceive them, to inquiry the representation that the expert has of his/her public(s), how the expert perceives to be represented by the people addressed to, and the responsibility the expert feels to carry out on the shoulder when she/he applies his/her expertise. To reach these objectives, twelve focus groups have been conducted in private and public research institutes that deal with geopolitical, climate, and healthcare topics. Sixty experts in these knowledge domains have been interviewed through the focus group technique. The results explore the relationship between the experts and their non-experts public(s), assuming the point of view of the experts in an interactional environment. This relationship can be conflictual when non-experts public(s) interpret it as symmetrical, wherein their lay expertise can replace that of the experts; on the contrary, this relationship is trust-based when non-experts public(s) rely on experts and their solving performance of a crisis context.