Going Out: A Sociology of Public Outings

Abstract

In this article we propose a framework for description and analysis of public life by treating "outings" as a unit of sociological analysis. Studying outings requires bracketing a concern with bounded places and isolated encounters. Instead, descriptions of outings track people as they organize trips "out," including their preparations, turning points, and post hoc reflections. We emphasize how people understand and contextualize their time in public by linking situated moments of public life to the outing's unfolding trajectory and to people's biographical circumstances. We treat outings in and through public parks as a strategic site to show the utility of studying public outings more generally. A sociology of outings has broad theoretical and methodological implications for how we understand the collective patterning of public life and inequality in everyday encounters.

Producing Diverse and Segregated Spaces: Local Businesses and Commercial Gentrification in Two Chicago Neighborhoods

“…While street festivals in Logan Square and Pilsen provide examples of whites and Latinos “taking turns” with the use of public space (Suttles 1968), the commercial districts in these gentrifying neighborhoods are better described as cases of what May (2014) calls, “integrated segregation.” A difference being how potential patrons might locate themselves in a particular place with regards to their identities and expectations (see also DeLand and Trouille 2018). Following Suttles’ example, cases of taking turns with space presuppose an expectation that if the immediate occupants of a space preclude access, the situation might change over a short amount of time as one group may leave and another may enter.…”

“…Business owners and event organizers are uniquely positioned to contribute to the production of diversity and tolerance or segregation and conflict that extends to and reflects that of the neighborhood level. Diverse groups of neighborhood visitors and residents’ anticipation and expectations of a place figure into their choice of destination (see also DeLand and Trouille 2018); they may take turns or practice integrated segregation or may visit cosmopolitan canopies. Business owners and event organizers, and particularly those associated with gentrification, may take actions to foster diversity and, potentially, minimize their contribution to cultural displacement.…”

Adopting a Cloak of Incompetence: Impression Management Techniques for Feigning Lesser Selves

“…We may also see the diffusion and spillover of particular local practices into more generalized public contexts (DeLand and Trouille 2018). Research should attend to the cloak of incompetence phenomenon not only in small groups with distinct idiocultures, relationships, memories, and reputations but also in stranger encounters of the public outing kind devoid of strong ties, personal biographies, and reputational risks, for “Whatever actors show of themselves in public, they also inevitably hide, suppress, and mystify aspects of self, knowing that copresent others won’t participate in the full range of situations that make up their lives” (DeLand and Trouille 2018:30). Indeed, the temporal-processual trajectory of human knowing and acting within, across, and between situations (Tavory 2018; Tavory and Eliasoph 2013) suggests variable hows and whys of feigning incompetence in gatherings, outings, and retirings.…”

“…Indeed, the temporal-processual trajectory of human knowing and acting within, across, and between situations (Tavory 2018; Tavory and Eliasoph 2013) suggests variable hows and whys of feigning incompetence in gatherings, outings, and retirings. Researchers would do well to “shadow” participants across settings (Trouille and Tavory 2019), “sustain[ing] the natural continuity of social life as private concerns trickle into public life, one situation flows into the next, and people practically manage passing between the multiple contexts in which they live” (DeLand and Trouille 2018:40).…”

Familiarity as a Practical Sense of Place

“…As a means of handling the public realm, familiarity emerges as an alternative to domestication or privatization or retreat into the home (Kumar and Makarova 2008). Furthermore, exploring familiarity may help us understand how we organize our “outings” (DeLand and Trouille 2018), why we often stick to routines, and how we choose certain routes and locations while avoiding others.…”