A Public Encounter in New York City: A Phenomenological View on a Sobering Experience 3031309634, 9783031309632

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A Public Encounter in New York City A Phenomenological View on a Sobering Experience Joong-Hwan Oh

A Public Encounter in New York City

Joong-Hwan Oh

A Public Encounter in New York City A Phenomenological View on a Sobering Experience

Joong-Hwan Oh Hunter College - The City University of New York New York, NY, USA

ISBN 978-3-031-30963-2    ISBN 978-3-031-30964-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30964-9 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration © Richard Green / Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

To my wife, Kyung Hwa And to my three children: Jenny Oh, Janet Oh, and Justin Oh

Acknowledgments

For more than 20 years, I have been a regular commuter from my home in New Jersey to my college where I teach (Hunter College), which is located at the intersection of East 68th Street and Lexington Avenue in Manhattan, New York City. During these long years of my public life in Midtown Manhattan, the number of my unanticipated public experiences—for example, a target of stranger harassment or rudeness, an observer of public panhandling or performance, or a recipient of a public kindness from an unfamiliar person—became very crucial to construct my current public outlooks and behavioral practices in New York City, known as the term of their present-time urban style in public in this book. Essentially, my main objective of this book was to present the entity of one’s temporal, subjective experience about an unanticipated or problematic event that took place in one of the New York City public spaces (i.e., the situated self ) and to emphasize such an unusual occasion as a great momentum for that person’s public life in New York City at the present time. Overall, this book addresses the importance of a phenomenological perspective in our understanding of one’s particular personal experience in the real world (i.e., the situated self ), as well as its ramifications in one’s urban public self of today (i.e., their present-time urban style in public). For this study, a diverse group of anonymous New Yorkers responded to my online survey that could take between 30 and 45 minutes to complete its mostly open-ended questions. I appreciate their active participation in this survey that was set on a first-person report (or a self-report). I

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

also want to express my thanks to Hyun Lee and Jenny Oh who read the whole or part of this book. I have really benefited from their great suggestions and insights. And finally, I thank my editors and staff at Palgrave Macmillan, especially Elizabeth Graber, who offered me warm support for this project with lots of positive feedback and strong encouragement.

Contents

1 Introduction  1 2 The  Public Setting of an Unexpected Experience in New York City 33 3 The  Essence of a Public Experience in New York City: The Situated Self in Public I 65 4 A  Public Experience in New York City from the Lens of a Victim: The Situated Self in Public II 97 5 A  Public Experience in New York City from the Lens of a Bystander: The Situated Self in Public II129 6 A Personalized Public Style in New York City161 7 Conclusion189 Index203

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About the Author

Joong-Hwan  Oh  is Professor of Sociology at Hunter College of The City University of New York. He received his B.A. in Sociology from Pusan National University (South Korea) and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of South Carolina. He teaches a wide range of courses, including urban sociology, the sociology of New York City, the sociology of online communities, and Asians in the United States. His substantive areas of expertise in sociology are urban communities, immigration, racial and ethnic inequalities, online social networks, and East Asia. He is the author of Examining the Use of Online Social Networks by Korean Graduate Students: Navigating Intercultural Academic Experiences (Routledge, 2019), and Immigration and Social Capital in the Age of Social Media: Messages of the American Social Institutions on a Korean-American Women’s Online Community (Lexington Books, 2016). He also co-edited five books that pertain to some Korean communities around the world. Furthermore, his work appeared in more than 20 peer-reviewed journals, such as Urban Studies, International Migration Review, New Media & Society, Social Science & Medicine, Asian Women, American Journal of Economics and Sociology, and Sociological Inquiry.

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List of Tables

Table 1.1 Table 1.2 Table 1.3 Table 4.1 Table 4.2 Table 4.3 Table 4.4 Table 4.5 Table 5.1 Table 5.2 Table 5.3 Table 5.4 Table 5.5

The core open-ended survey questions 19 Demographic information 21 A list of the nine main themes 24 Vigilant agents102 Instinctive defenders110 Situational receptors114 Situational escapers118 Fractured agents121 Situational observers134 Situational stayers141 Situational regulars146 Situational avoiders149 Situational participants153

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

There are many diverse public spaces in New York City—for example, a street, a sidewalk, a subway station or train, a bus, a park, a plaza, a bar, a store, and so on. For both of relatively long-term residents in New York City and regular commuters to it, each of its public spaces becomes a physical setting in their city life. Just as individual lives are “uniquely shaped by the city” (Pardo & Prato, 2018, p. 7), so a personalized pattern of their public activities in the city, including their public relationships with unacquainted others, can be very much reshaped by the often attention-­grabbing, frightening, or offensive experiences they had in some of its public spaces earlier. Indeed, such public experiences of individuals in the bustle of their city life would substantially construct, or reconstruct, what I call their present-time urban style in public. Although their urban public stance differs from person to person, it generally signifies their own cohesive principles and standards that consist in their urban public outlooks (e.g., vigilance, coolness, or tolerance) and urban public behaviors (e.g., auto-involvements, the management of personal appearance or personal hygiene in public, or dissociation) (Goffman, 1963). In fact, relatively long-term residents in New York City and regular commuters to it have forged certain aspects of their present-time urban style in public in consequence of their unusual public experiences in the city. For each of them, this viability of their present-time urban style in public is also very

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J.-H. Oh, A Public Encounter in New York City, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30964-9_1

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important for keeping their everyday public life more routinized, as well as for making their public relationships with other urban strangers more predictable and civil. In essence, those who had experienced an unanticipated or problematic public event in the city would find such a personal experience unforgettable and very meaningful to themselves from their point of view of the actual “Here and Now” regardless of the passage of time (Schutz, 1967). For each of them, this particular public experience in the city is certainly called upon as a form of self-guidance when navigating similar events in the present and future (Bandura, 2001). In a broad sense, what that alarming or amazing experience means to themselves is the fact that it can become an important personal resource for their current and future public ways of life in the city. In much the same context, the human properties of their forethought, intention, and self-reactiveness make it possible to link their particular public experience—for example, the occurrence of an unanticipated (or problematic) event or an abrupt encounter with a stranger (or a group of strangers) while appearing in one of the New York City public spaces—to the development or reconstruction of their present-­ time urban style in public. However, research on a past public experience in the city, which still affects one’s current public life in a variety of ways, is largely missing from a wide range of existing literature on the subjects of daily routines in urban life, urban public civilities, and public social order, or otherwise, those of public incivilities and social disorder in relationships with urban strangers. Therefore, one chapter of this book, Chap. 6, covers this important topic that certain aspects of their present-time urban style in public emerged in consequence of a particular personal experience they had had in one of the New York City public spaces by chance. More than anything else, the main objective of this book is to present the entity (or essence) of such a particular personal experience that occurred in one of the city’s public spaces by using a large sample of its local residents and regular commuters to it (Chaps. 3, 4, and 5). To that end, my approach to it, both theoretical and methodological, is the phenomenological one that is an in-depth study on the very temporal nature of a human experience in the real world from a first-person point of view (Gallagher, 2012; Glendinnings, 2008; Heidegger, 1962; Husserl, 1983; Sokolowski, 2000). As for that particular public experience in their city life, these individuals have the ability of self-reflection (or self-reflexivity), a notion that suggests a thorough examination in their inner world in the hope of promoting their self-efficacy both presently and in the future

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(Bandura, 2001, pp. 10–12). Along with this comprehensive meaning of self-reflection, one of my stances in these three chapters is to see this concept of self-reflection (or self-reflexivity) by focusing more on “the turning-­back of the experience of the individual upon [one]self” (Mead, [1934] 1962, p. 134). Overall, my locus of concern in this book is that an experience of this kind is “the things themselves” or “the originally presentive act of actuality” from the angle of each of my respondents as the subjective beings (Husserl, 1983, pp. 35–36: Sokolowski, 2000). For each of them, one way to know the real world of their particular personal experience, completely and thoroughly, is to go back and re-look at “the things themselves” of it “without blinker” (Glendinnings, 2008). From this point on, I introduce a new concept, called the situated self, that is, the whole entity of their temporal and subjective world that fully represents a particular public experience of their own in the city. In other words, it is a sub-system of the self, as well as a specific moment of one’s “being-in-the-­ word” or one of a person’s lived experiences in a particular location at an earlier time. In principle, that personal experience of the self itself is the occurrence of “a serial course of affairs with their own characteristic properties and relationships” (Dewey, 1925, p. 232). In this light, this concept of the situated self is understood as their temporal but synthetic being that brings together one’s human traits, perceptions, bodily sensations, emotions, cognition, and behavioral reaction in the face of such a public event in the city, to a greater or lesser degree. Moreover, the use of a first-person point of view, which is a self-report (or self-account) of a real-world experience, is also integral to the analysis and dissection of the situated self. Some urban sociologists were already well-known for their perspectives or their research on some noticeable forms or phenomena of urban lifestyles in public, which are largely equivalent to some features of my term their present-time urban style in public. In his classic essay “The Metropolis and Mental Life,” for example, Simmel (1964) argued that some common characteristics widely shared among the vast majority of urbanites in any large cities were their blasé attitude, such as cold-heartedness or indifference to the needs of others and dissociation or impassiveness in public relationships with other urban strangers. These characters of their mental and psychological states and public relationships with others were basically their natural self-reaction “to preserve subjective life against the overwhelming power of metropolitan life that pertains to the immense challenges of their urban economic, occupational, and social life” (Simmel, 1964, p.  411). Then, one thing that remains unclear in his work of a

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personal construction of such urban personalities and deportments is the real meanings of their urban public experiences in their continued urban life in public itself at the micro level over the purview of their stressful work environment in the city. Similarly, Milgram (1970) argued that most New Yorkers could not help but develop certain urban mindsets and demeanors (e.g., coldness, tolerance, detachment) to adapt themselves psychologically and emotionally to the enormous forces of their city, as well as to the unpredictable circumstances of their public life in it. His account also leaves little room for how individual direct, or actual, experiences in the city’s public spaces and the current pattern of their urban life in public are closely related to each other. Much of the same kind of problem was found in Goffman’s delineations of some important concepts on urban relations in public (Goffman, 1963, 1971). One of these concepts is “body gloss,” which is a sort of bodily motion for each of their parties in the situations of public interactions so as to read the body signals of the others and react in a proper manner (Goffman, 1971, p. 10). This specific type of public social interaction involves glancing at each other and gleaning information about another based upon each other’s physical co-presence. This term is also a constituent unit of his term “unfocused interaction,” a general personal style for stranger interactions in public (Goffman, 1963, p.  24). Thus, leaving out any mutually observable facial engagement and verbal communication between them is characteristic of this seemingly broad category of personal urban style in public (Goffman, 1963, p. 24). In fact, the foremost principle rule in the situations of “unfocused interaction” is called as “civil inattention” (Goffman, 1971, pp. 83–85). This public rule of “civil inattention” that urbanites should tacitly and commonly exercise across urban public spaces implies that “one gives to another enough visual notice to demonstrate that one appreciates that the other is present … while at the next moment withdrawing one’s attention from him so as to express that he does not constitute a target of special curiosity or design” (Goffman, 1971, p.  84). Thus, this public norm of “civil ­inattention” further stresses the role of each other there as an audience: “it may require that one not be obviously interested in the affairs of the other, but it does not require that one not be interested at all” (Lofland, 1989, p.  463). Goffman further introduced another large category of public relationships and the corresponding public attitudes, that is, “focused interaction” (or “an encounter”) that underscores their mutual facial engagement with “taking turns at talking” (Goffman, 1963, pp. 24, 89).

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Basically, this type of personal urban manner in social interactions with others shows a general situational sequence of public relationships, which is the start of “eye-to-eye looks,” the sense of “a shared definition of the situation” to each other, the performance of “talks,” and at last, the termination of their mutual communication (Goffman, 1963, pp.  92, 96). Then, his aforementioned concepts remain vague about the nexus between a unique urban experience in public and its conspicuous ramification in that person’s urban public life, both at the present time and in the future, not to mention about the essence of a public interaction from a first-­ person point of view. In some of prior urban studies, this linkage, which is especially about past local experiences and these ramifications on the construction of some of one’s personal mindsets or modes of behavior there at present, was already an academic interest, especially in the research areas of urban neighborhoods and/or the subpopulations in the city. One of them is Anderson’s ethnographic fieldwork for the poor inner-city black communities in Philadelphia, where many inner-city youths, and some of their neighboring youths, were compelled to adapt themselves to their dangerous and crime-ridden surroundings (Anderson, 1999). As both a particular form of urban public life and a coping strategy, they hold “the code of the street,” a set of informal rules governing their public conducts and public social relationships, such as an “eye for an eye,” a certain “payback” for transgressions, showing the right amount of respect, being tough, or showing nerve (Anderson, 1999, pp. 10–12, 32–34, 66–106). All sorts of their personal experiences at the time of their adolescence and in this high-­ risk environment for their personal safety were crucial for embodying themselves “the code of the street” (Anderson, 1999). However, this version of urban public mindsets and behaviors differs from my characterization of their present-time urban style in public (e.g., vigilance, tolerance, indifference or civil inattention, dissociation, self-involvement) that has permeated to a wide range of people using various types of public spaces in the city over their local neighborhoods. Similarly, the past experiences of young people on the Lower East Side of Manhattan pushed forward to develop themselves “street literacy” (Caitlin, 2000). This concept of their own urban outlooks and practices, which became cultivated with the personal experiences of their local neighborhoods and these surroundings, is distinctive. For it is all-inclusive of their own public conducts and environmental negotiations for coping with danger or fear, their understandings about local institutions (e.g., the economic, political, and social), and their

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knowledge about local people and the changing landscapes inside and outside of their urban neighborhoods over time, which are reflective of local redevelopment, gentrification, and globalization (Caitlin, 2000). However, this term “street literacy” (e.g., their urban attitudes and know-­ how constructed from various local experiences), which can be only applicable in a particular local circumstance (e.g., only some neighborhoods in the Lower East Side of Manhattan), is not the same as that of their present-­ time urban style in public. Another urban sociologist that is relevant to this subject of discussion is Gardner (1995), who studied public harassment. Here, public harassment was defined as “that group of abuses, harryings, and annoyances characteristic of public places and uniquely facilitated by communication in public” (Gardner, 1995, p.  4). There were two broad categories of public harassment about which her female respondents showed great concern based upon their experiences on it in the past: exploitations (e.g., touch, hitting, following, scrutiny) and evaluations (e.g., critical commentary, name calling, insults, contempt) (Gardner, 1995, pp.  132–142). As a result of such personal experiences, certain types of their urban way of life materialized for their future situational self-management. These personal maneuvers include avoidance, ignorance, tricks, compliance, or acting back alongside the different situations (Gardner, 1995, pp.  199–225). One of the merits of her work was her judicious investigations into the general nature of such kinds of personal public experiences and these influences on the creation of their unique urban lifestyles in public. Her work also put gender, race, ethnicity, residence, and other demographic backgrounds at the forefront of her examination on such urban public experiences. In addition to public harassment, however, eight other themes are further included in my book: public racism, crime, rudeness, kindness, panhandling, conversation, filthiness, and exhibition. At a personal level, the real world of a human experience itself is as important as what it mobilizes thereafter. Indubitably, a human experience is a challenging concept to work out. In this book, I drew my attention to one particular public experience that had occurred in one of the New York City public spaces. In general, this public event was set with one’s situational placement—for example, one of its initiators (or a group of its initiators or offenders), one of its targets (or a group of its targets or victims), or one of its bystanders (or a group of its bystanders). In the present context, it also has come to light, personally, as a very vivid, special, and memorable occasion. In a previous study, an urban public experience was

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seen simply as the personal experience of one’s spatial perceptions, mainly of their visual sense of spacing (or physical or social distance) among people temporarily gathering in an urban public space, or one’s experience about space and its people and objects through the synthesis of their multiple sensory inputs: visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory, and thermal (Hall, 1968, p.  95). In this kind of phenomenological approach to a human experience in relation to urban geography, one’s perception of space is closely linked to the presence of one’s body in the real world and the bodily capacity in spatial movement (Merleau-Ponty, 1962, pp.  234–425). Definitely, phenomenology is a good perspective for the study of a human experience in the framework of one’s time-space rhythms (Buttimer, 1977). When walking down a city street is regarded as a case of urban public experience, for example, walkers tend to experience all kinds of human senses, physiological reactions, and bodily movement in different degrees (Vergunst, 2010). Likewise, at the time, their temporary, spatial-­sensory perceptions and bodily orientations heavily influence their elastic decision of “spatial practices” or spatial tactics that drive them to react in situationally sensible or operational ways (De Certeau, 1984, pp. 91–110). Ultimately, their everyday experience of spatial appearance or mobility allows them (e.g., walkers on the street or passengers using public transport) to read the changing social landscape of people (e.g., the social identity of strangers) and streets (e.g., ethnic store signs) (Krase, 2012; Shortell, 2018). Henceforth, personal mobility in or across public spaces is part of a human experience, like how walking is “a discerning, judging, and cognitive activity” (Ash & Simpson, 2016; Morris, 2010, p. 237). On the whole, each of these previous studies seems to assume no “disruptions and disturbances in this ensemble” of all their personal senses, rhythms, and body (LeFebvre, 2004, p. 81). However, in this book, the personal experience of a public matter in the city is identified in one of three parts: (1) an unanticipated breaking, distraction, or interference of their own routinized activities in one of the city’s public spaces because of their unavoidable encounter with a stranger (or a group of strangers); (2) a problematic, disruptive, or unusual situation or event they observed there by chance; and (3) an abrupt public occasion related to a positive thing or outcome from a stranger (or a handful of strangers) toward another (e.g., giving a hand). In another study, a teenager’s observation and evaluation of other riders’ behaviors, interactions, and compliance or non-compliance with the basic subway rules were depicted as a specific type of urban public

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experience (Ocejo & Tonnelat, 2014). In the book, Incivility: The Rude Stranger in Everyday Life, urban public experiences were largely identified as actions that were inappropriate, uncivil, or offensive (Smith et  al., 2010). Under the argument that everyday public incivility can be either a public encounter with rude strangers or any kind of experience on public rudeness during the past month, its authors classified four major types of public rudeness from a sample of 1621 adults living in Australia: movement and space management (e.g., pushed in front of me, blocked my way, bumped into me, invaded my space); body language (e.g., rude bodily gesture, threw litter, spat); bodily decorum (e.g., screaming, screeching, or shouting); and intrusive sounds (e.g., swearing, prejudicial comments) (Smith et  al., 2010). This study of public incivility further unveiled the situational process of an urban public experience by highlighting one’s personal position (e.g., a victim or a bystander), emotions, and behavioral responses at the time (Smith et al., 2010). Like this study of everyday public incivility in Australia, my current book introduces various kinds of public incivilities. More importantly, my account in this book emphasizes other aspects of human characteristics, such as personalities, perceptions, and cognition, and their mutual connectivity, in examining the essence of one’s particular public experience in the city. Moreover, my conceptual framework for the study of a human experience, which took place in one of the city’s public spaces, is really in a systematic and comprehensive fashion. In this book, the phenomenological perspective centers on my quest for a particular urban public experience that was self-involved—in what is called the situated self, defined as a temporal, subjective experience of a “real-world” phenomenon in one of the city’s public spaces. My point here is that knowing the authenticity of the situated self in the face of an unanticipated public event—that is, the essence of its authentic state such as one’s real-time perceptions, emotions, cognitions, and behaviors—can be truly re-materialized. Thus, at present, an able-minded person continues to find its full expression deep inside oneself. The passage of time is not an issue as long as that urban public experience was one’s very traumatic, frightening, or attention-grabbing experience in life. Indeed, the person of its experience can still sense and feel every moment of that public event even though it was just a past personal matter of a short temporary occasion or a unique type of human relationship with the other urban strangers in one of the city’s public spaces in the past. In turn, this is the basis of the self-reflective phenomenology I attempt to demonstrate in this

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book. Then, it seems impossible for human beings to have the ability to grasp the authentic whole of a personal experience of their own in an exact manner at the present point in time. Likewise, indeed, the accurate configuration of the situated self, constitutive mainly of their situationally induced perceptions, emotions, cognitions, and behaviors, also seems to be very challenging at the very time when they were being directly or indirectly faced with—or were observing—that public event. For they might have been already, to a greater or lesser degree, immersed in that situational gravity by themselves. Every second of the situational event, as a matter of only a moment, and a series of its moments, moved to pass already when they are about to wrestle with those exact momentary actualities, synchronously and completely, from their own subjective point of view. Thus, it is unlikely for themselves to grasp each exact thing of the situated self simultaneously with their internal experiential process of each moment of the associated public event. Therefore, the self-reflective phenomenology I stress throughout this book is the one that works well. To put it in another way, my phenomenological perspective is oriented to elaborate on the essence of the situated self through two distinct but interlinked phases of that personal public experience in the city. Upon a first-person account (or a self-report), the first domain of the situated self, also called The Situated Self in Public I, focuses on the conception of personal orientations—understood as the distinctive personal values, beliefs, and identities of the self—and a natural reckoning of these personal attributes in the course of the self-involvement of human perceptions, “nascent consciousness,” and physiological emotions at the time. The second domain of it, called The Situated Self in Public II, represents the temporary human functioning of their emotional arousal, cognitive engagement or reflective consciousness (e.g., situational monitoring and deliberation), and the subsequent behavioral repertoires or displays for the sake of the situational management on their own. Overall, from a first-person point of view, the main purport of this book is to elucidate the entity of the situated self (Chaps. 3, 4, and 5)—that is, “the things themselves and the ways they appear in experience”—during an unanticipated or problematic event with which some of my respondents were faced—or that the others observed, in one of the city’s public spaces (Schmicking & Gallagher, 2010). In addition, Chap. 2 looks into the physical and other settings of the situated self (e.g., a defining issue, the situational background, one’s situational position, and relationships with the others), whereas Chap. 6 demonstrates some new elements of their present-time urban style in public as a direct consequence of that particular public experience in the city.

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In the sections below, first, I lay out my conceptual framework of the situated self, which is composed of The Situated Self in Public I and The Situated Self in Public II. With that in mind, I review the related academic literature, including the concept of the self. Here, I further suggest a significant implication of that real, subjective experience of the self—namely, the situated self—for the emergence of certain elements of their present-­ time urban style in public. Second, I outline my general research strategies, the demographics of my respondents, and the response patterns of the self-report survey items. Lastly, the key themes and organization of the subsequent chapters in this book are summed up.

A Phenomenological Approach to an Unexpected Public Experience in New York City Phenomenology is the theoretical and methodological approach to the study of the essence of one of our lived experiences in the real world through self-reflection (Gallagher, 2012; Husserl, 1983; Jennings, 1986; Schmicking & Gallagher, 2010). To put it clearly, this approach is a rigorous descriptive study about the things or phenomena of a personal experience itself—for example, certain human perceptions, orientations, and actions—that is also a subjective experience of one’s own (Honer & Hitzler, 2015). As for one’s particular public experience in the city, phenomenology is very appropriate for examining the essence of that personal lived world that represents their perceptions, positions, appraisals, and acts in the situation, through their reflective stance.1 Before explicating this argument in great detail, the importance of the self-concept needs to be addressed because our individual self is the pivot and bastion of its “life-­ world” experience stretching over past, present, and future in effect. Upon that particular public experience in one’s city life, certain things of one’s “past” self tend to cohere into one’s “present” self as “the self forms a trajectory of development from the past to the anticipated future” (Giddens, 1991, p. 75). To put it another way, an important characteristic of the self is to remember some of one’s personal experiences (James, 1910; Tulving, 2002). For example, whether or not remembering one particular event amid a bulk of one’s public urban experiences in the past is heavily dependent upon many personal capacities that include its visual clarity and intensity, other sensory details and physiological sensations, the specifics of its time and place, emotional intensity, the valence of emotional feeling (positive or negative), situational thoughts and behaviors at

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the time, and so forth (Sutin & Robins, 2017). As a matter of fact, to someone in one of the city’s public spaces in the past, the occurrence of an unanticipated or problematic event or an unusual stranger interaction is something of what they remember very well. Thus, people can easily recollect the specifics of that particular life-affecting experience, such as its time and place, its situational problem or issue, those directly involved in it, their situational perceptions, emotions, cognition, and even their or others’ behavioral reactions at the time. Especially, self-feeling is key to human remembering (Stephen & Peace, 2007). They keep recollecting traumatic situations because it provoked strong negative emotions, not only during the very time of such a public occasion but also even in its aftermath (Stephen & Peace, 2007). Usually, one’s situational experience of strong negative emotions at the time—for example, anger, fear, disgust, or embarrassment—can come from many different sources, such as the uncontrollable forces or circumstances, one’s high sense of uncertainty about its situational development, and/or the people directly involved in it. Agency is another core feature of the self (Callero, 2003; Giddens, 1991; James, 1910; McAdams, 1996; Mead, [1934] 1962). For one’s own part, agency is central to that person’s selfhood, that is, the self-­ definition of who an individual oneself is (Jenkins, 2008, p. 51). In this concept of the self or the self-identity, more importantly, it also represents the personal capability to organize one’s current and future life plans and exercise the accompanying schemes—for example, a specific type of one’s urban public schema—in certain situations (Mead, [1934] 1962, p. 255; Bandura, 2001). Regardless of the type and intensity of that personal experience that occurred in one of the city’s public spaces, most of these people—for example, relatively long-term residents in New York City and regular commuters to it—are those who continue to use some of its public spaces for their city life or for their commute from home to work, school, or other destinations. For each of them, that personal experience was a kind of urban occurrence that was largely unanticipated, unpleasant, or dangerous to oneself and even to another in the same public space. After that experience, these individuals have themselves a propensity to plan ahead in anticipation of future, such as for their daily urban routines and public safety (Mead, [1934] 1962; Bandura, 2001). As a consequence, for example, their present-time urban style in public would embrace these agentic efforts, to a greater or lesser extent. For each of them, even this human faculty of agency also worked out at the very time when they were faced with—or were observing—that public occasion. In other words, this

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concept of agency, which emphasizes some degree of human volition, latitude, and agility, can be even applicable at the actual situational time of it (Emirbayer & Mische, 1998, p.  963). When they were being primarily placed as one of its victims (or one of its targets) or one of its bystanders in the situation, it is wrong to assume that they were constantly in the inactive state of mind, affect, and body during the whole of its situational time. As a matter of fact, some of them actively would attempt to figure out its issues, the people directly or indirectly involved in it, and its situational process, and to perform proper coping strategies to deal with it on their own. Another indispensable property of the self is human reflexivity, known as a principal part of human agency that is an essential realm of the self (Callero, 2003; Giddens, 1991; James, 1910; Mead, [1934] 1962). When still faced with, or when observing, such an unexpected public event, they were able to be fully or partially conscious of themselves and other individuals in the situation (Mead, [1934] 1962, p. 253). It is because humans are thinkers especially of themselves, others, and things during the time of their “real-world” experience. Likewise, thinking of some of their past experiences is integral to human nature. Thus, they are conscious of their “Me of yesterday” (James, 1910, p. 2010). Only when any personal experience of the self, which has no time restraints, becomes grasped with their perceptual concern from the reflexive angle of the self, it can be seen as something meaningful to themselves (Schutz, 1967, p. 69). At this point, reflexivity is important for understanding one’s own subjective experience (Farrugia, 2013). To be sure, one critical reason for reflecting on some of one’s past experiences has direct bearing on a “reflexive project” for personal future (Giddens, 1991, pp. 73–75). This human reflexivity of that particular experience is deeply rooted in personal interests, attitudes, or concerns (Epstein, 1973). After one’s experience of that particular public encounter in the city, for example, one of that person’s reflexive projects can be the mindful preparation for the continued normality of daily life across the New York City public spaces at the present time and in the future time. Of course, the self-reflexivity of that past experience is basically grounded on one’s remembering of it (Bartlett, 1932, p.  205). Furthermore, there also exists a close relationship between self-reflexivity and self-feeling (Burkitt, 1997, 2012; Cooley, 1902). Especially, self-­ feelings are one of the main sources of self-reflexivity (Burkitt, 1997, 2012; Cooley, 1902; Holmes, 2010). After that actual personal experience, these emotions cannot be exactly replicated. Nonetheless, the long

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lingering sensation of one’s past situational emotions that experienced during the time of the public occasion can be one of their driving forces behind their self-reflexivity on it at the present time and even in the future. In general, all these unique human aptitudes and characteristics of the self across time—for example, agency, reflexivity, self-feeling, and memory—would ultimately make it possible to shape a part of, or a great deal of, their present-time urban style in public. In a word, this term their present-­time urban style in public is referred to as the whole of their current personalized urban public outlooks and urban public behaviors, including their public relationships with strangers. Indubitably, there are many different sources that contribute to the current entity and constitution of the self—for example, a wide range of personal experiences, knowledge, and practices they have gained during their entire personal life. In particular, for each of my respondents, certain forms of their present-time urban style in public have materialized after that personal experience of such a particular public occasion in the city. This new addition to their present-time urban style in public can be certain kinds of one’s current urban public outlooks (e.g., vigilance, inattention, coolness, tolerance, or self-­ concentration) and/or one’s urban public behaviors (e.g., physical distance or dissociation, self-involvement, the avoidance of eye contact or talk, or the act of helping a hand). When it comes to draw attention only to a particular urban experience in public, human properties of the self—for example, agency, reflexivity (here, situational cognition), and other emotional and behavioral functioning—can likewise become the center of describing the very essence of that “real-world” subjective experience (Gallagher, 2012; Husserl, 1983; Sokolowski, 2000). In turn, this phenomenological (or the first-person) approach has a high relevance for investigating the essence of that temporal, personal experience that is composed of their certain perceptions, physiological state, emotions, consciousness (or cognition), and their coping behavior. This is the gist of this book. Looking at every human experience in the real world from the perspective of time, it is always one’s experience in the past or “Then”: otherwise, any human experience that is experiencing “Now” or is yet to come is left outside of the compass of human experience. In the physical setting of one of the New York City public spaces, the existential liveliness or experience of the self in that particular situation at that particular time is what I call the situated self. This term the situated self is largely understood as the temporal, personal world of the self who was faced with—or who was observing—an unanticipated

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public event or a stranger encounter in the city. Not only is it a specific kind of human experience, but it is also the type of personal experience that is temporarily “an active process of becoming in transition” and “a multiplicity of dynamic connections” (Mccormack, 2010). For each of my respondents, this also denotes the subjective experience of a public occasion in New  York City at a particular time. More specifically, the main constituent units that represent the whole of such a personal experience in the real world are one’s perceptions, sensory and physiological responses, emotions, cognitions, and behavioral tendencies or displays (James, 1912, pp. 13, 44–60). Taken together, the term the situated self signifies one’s “own ways of experiencing” that urban event in public or one’s “act of experiencing” it (Dewey, 1925, pp. 12–18). In principle, the account of the situated self should address the nature of each and all these constituent units, not to mention their temporary connections while faced with it, or while observing it. In this light, I frame it by two distinct but interconnected situational phases from one’s own subjective perspective: The Situated Self in Public I and The Situated Self in Public II. At the very time of such a human experience, the self goes through the continuously developing transition from one moment of it to the next, here, largely from The Situated Self in Public I to The Situated Self in Public II (James, 1912, pp. 44–60). During the time of that particular public experience in the city, the phase of The Situated Self in Public I is the experiential domain of the self, usually at the beginning of the situational event, who activated specific types of one’s perceptions, somatosensory sensations, “nascent consciousness,” and certain emotions. When faced with, or observing, that unanticipated event in one of the city’s public spaces, people would meet it first by their “outer perception,” namely, their visual perception (Merleau-Ponty, 1962, p.  61). To some extent, unfolding it initially to themselves also needs the synchrony of their visual and other perceptual operations, such as auditory, olfactory, and tactile ones. At the same time, they would further sense it with their corporeal body (Merleau-Ponty, 1962, p.  239). Taken together, the physical presence of their body in the real world makes themselves meet it by chance and communicate with it especially through the medium of their visual perception (Merleau-Ponty, 1962, pp. 77–402). At any one moment of time, some shifts in their sensory and physiological systems—for example, increased heart rate, tense muscles, nervousness, blushing, or stomach sensation—would happen instinctively, as well. Still, at this early time of the urban public event under way, they all individually

1 INTRODUCTION 

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would be inclined to undergo the internal stages from “seeing” to “knowing” with their body and the working of some of its nerve and physiological functions (Merleau-Ponty, 1962, p. 44). The allusions of “knowing” during the situational event are their quick, intuitive senses of what’s going on here, who is being directly or indirectly involved in it, and/or what has already happened to themselves or someone else there. A human sense (or “knowing”) that arises in a situational moment—that is, this aspect of human cognition known as the “nascent consciousness”—is merely an instantaneous awareness or intuition of their own situational knowledge or understanding that is generally devoid of any deliberate evaluations on it due to their abrupt encounter with it (or observation to it), including the people directly involved in it. As a result, this state of their fledgling consciousness brings about the elicitation of certain emotions in themselves—for example, negative (fear, anger, displeasure, disgust) or positive (warmth, delight, gratitude, friendliness)—as their body is also an affective object (Merleau-Ponty, 1962, p. 107; Moors, 2009). In this phase of The Situated Self in Public I, their automatic evocation of some emotions pertains to the transgression, or otherwise the reawakening, of their personal orientations that are the true character of their self or self-identity (Frijda, 2007; Haidt et al., 1993; Hutcherson & Gross, 2011; Merleau-Ponty, 1962; Rozin et al., 1999; Russell & Giner-Sorolla, 2013; Siemer & Reisenzein, 2007). The term of personal orientations is referred to as a wide assortment of personal veritable interests, beliefs, and attitudes toward oneself, others, and the world. For the individual self, it is composed of two distinct but closely related parts: their private character and their collective nature. At first, the private character of the self corresponds to what Shweder et al. (1997) named “the ethics of autonomy,” which signifies the protection of individual’s rights, justice, and life (no harm), in addition to other broad moral vocabularies such as individual-level well-being, choice, and liberty. Similarly, it is also what Haidt and Graham (2007) named “harm/care” and “fairness and reciprocity” as two elements of moral domain or judgment. In an urban public setting, on the one hand, it is an informal prerequisite that people have a right to keep conducting their routine and civil activities without intervention of any kind from other urbanites. On the other hand, public safety is of great concern to themselves in case that they are at risk of facing danger. To many urbanites, even their personal mindsets and attitudes of vigilance, indifference, and avoidance toward other people spatially proximate to them can also come from their

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personal interests and motivations, in a sense, to protect their privacy, rights, and freedom. The collective nature of the self, as the other part of personal orientations, represents their group identities and ethics on the ground of their memberships in a larger community or society. It represents what Shweder et al. (1997) named “the ethics of community,” which conveys their protection of and their duty on their social members, their acceptance of its social norms and hierarchy, and their mutual interdependence with its other social members. Moreover, it is what Graham et al. (2009) called “ingroup/loyalty” and “authority/respect” as two elements of moral judgment, and what Hart et al. (1998, p. 515) named “moral identity” as one aspect of the self’s social identity, defined as “a commitment to one’s sense of self to lines of action that promote or protect the welfare of others.” In this same urban public setting, the collective nature of the self can become manifested in many different ways, such as giving a helping hand to a sick passenger on the subway, practicing physical distancing with other unfamiliar pedestrians on the street, showing willingness to intervene in someone’s public disorder or harassment against another there, or making a polite apology after bumping into another person. By and large, in this phase of The Situated Self in Public I, the natural reckoning of their particular personal orientations arises from their emotional experience—for example, fear, anger, discomfort, shock, sadness, thankfulness, relief—that usually transpired in their inner world at the beginning of the public event they faced or observed in the city (for details, see Chap. 3). What’s more, their emotional arousal at the time also plays the powerful role of mediating the unbreakable relationship between the phase of The Situated Self in Public I and that of The Situated Self in Public II that comes naturally after the former. In this phase of The Situated Self in Public II, their emotional arousal now becomes a driving force governing and navigating the constructive process of their subjective appraisals and the subsequent behavioral tendencies that have to do with the activation or deactivation of their behavioral reactions to cope with it on their own. Thus, their emotional experience at one moment of that elicited event is the basis of their own adaptive reaction to it (Izard, 1989; Roseman, 2011, 2013). In fact, there existed a wide range of past studies about a direct effect of their emotional experiences on their situational thinking, cognition, or judgment (Burkitt, 2012; Cooley, 1902; Fargas, 1995; Holmes, 2010; Keltner et  al., 1993; Schwarz, 1990, 2002; Tiedens & Linton, 2001; Tuan, 2007). Likewise, either a direct influence of one’s

1 INTRODUCTION 

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situational emotions on one’s situational management or the implication of one’s behavioral tendencies in the absence of one’s emotions during the situational encounter was addressed in some studies (Phillips & Smith, 2004; Raghunathan et  al., 2006; Shott, 1979). But relatively, there has been little effort to examine the continued situational flow of the systematic interplay of human emotions, an array of cognitive processing (e.g., situational monitoring and deliberation), and the subsequent behavioral reaction, let alone from a first-person point of view (Izard, 2007; Lazarus, 1991). To tackle this problem, I explore this topic by focusing on two specific groups of my respondents, its victims (or targets) and its bystanders (or onlookers). In these three broad but distinctive elements of The Situated Self in Public II, human emotion mainly comprised both emotional types and intensity levels, negative and positive; the situational stage of their cognition (or consciousness) is made up of the degree of situational monitoring and the level of situational deliberation; and the type and presentation of behavioral reaction include the activation or deactivation of their prudent, defensive, or instant conduct at the time. In doing so, in more detail, this temporal personal framework of human emotion, cognition, and behavior, which is the backbone of The Situated Self in Public II, is applied to each of five different subgroups within a larger group of its victims (or targets), respectively—for example, vigilant agents, instinctive defenders, situational receptors, situational escapers, and fractured agents (for details, see Chap. 4)—as well as each of five distinctive subgroups of its bystanders (for details, see Chap. 5), respectively—for example, situational observers, situational stayers, situational regulars, situational avoiders, and situational participants. For example, vigilant agents, as a subgroup of its victims (or targets), were generally cautious situational inspectors, deliberate planners, and executors of proper coping strategies during the time of their public encounter in the city. In turn, this phase of The Situated Self in Public II would put great emphasis on situational emotions as the turning point for the personal start of a situational management that hinges upon the combination of their cognitive functioning (e.g., situational monitoring and deliberation) and a set of behavioral reactions. In short, from a first-person point of view, this book aims to elucidate the essence of the situated self—that is, “the phenomenon inasmuch as it signifies”—during the whole of an unanticipated or problematic event each of my respondents met by chance in one of the city’s public spaces (Sartre, 1962). In the phenomenological conception of the phenomenon,

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it is “the Being of entities, its meaning, its modifications and derivatives … nor is it some such thing as appearing” (Heidegger, 1962, p. 60). In this book, it is the temporal and personal world of the situated self that materialized only in the real course of such an urban public event. As it is very rare so far to find an in-depth study of an urban public experience from a sample of diverse personal backgrounds, particularly in the wide range of urban studies in the United States, it is worth examining the constitution, nature, and process of the situated self in a systematic and comprehensive manner. More than anything else, the ultimate value of this book lies in a first-person account that describes the situational totality of their subjective experience at the time. As such a public experience in the city was also an unanticipated, offensive, frightening, or attention-grabbing one to each of my respondents, it is undeniable that this particular experience of the situated self can stand as a self-imposed reference for one’s current urban life in public. The validation of this point is revealed in such a common expression that this particular personal experience has taught each of my respondents—a large sample of local residents in New York City and regular commuters to it—a great wisdom and deportment for their present-­ time urban style in public.

A Self-Report Study My study of a particular personal experience in one of the New York City public spaces belongs to a very unique type of urban ethnographic research that “links empirically-based analysis to theory” (Pardo & Prato, 2012). Theoretically as well as methodologically, phenomenology is the study of human experience from one’s own point of view, namely, from a first-­ person point of view (Gallagher, 2012; Glendinnings, 2008; Heidegger, 1962; Husserl, 1983). Thus, it investigates the essence—or “the things themselves”—of one’s subjective experience that was being self-involved in the real world. For this reason, the vital parts of phenomenological method are both a first-person report (or a self-report) and a self-­ description on a personal experience (Gallagher, 2012, pp. 41–61). In this book, one’s subjective experience corresponds to the temporarily lived experience of an unanticipated public event in New York City. Here, the essence—or “the things themselves”—of one’s subjective experience of it is the authenticity of the situated self, which is largely composed of both The Situated Self in Public I and The Situated Self in Public II. In the survey instrument for this study, some open-ended, self-reported questions

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were made to identify the essence (or entity) of the situated self.2 These open-ended questions were very useful in my attempt to figure out the constitution, character, and situational development of it from the angle of one’s own subjective perspective. Table 1.1 presented these questions

Table 1.1  The core open-ended survey questions During and after The Open-ended questions an unanticipated public event The situated self

(A) The Situated Self in Public I:

(B) The Situated Self in Public II:

Their present-­ time urban style in public

1. Briefly, state when and where this happened in the context of your destination at that time (e.g., going to work or school, rush hour, year, month, or season). 2. State the details of such a personal experience, including the general situation and specific nature of that problematic, unusual, or disruptive matter, incident, or event, as well as your speculated information about the general or observed profile of a stranger (or a handful of strangers) with whom you were encountered, or when you were one of the bystanders, at the time. 3. During the time of your encounter with—or your observation to—a stranger (or a handful of strangers), what specifically did that stranger (or a handful of strangers) do to you—or someone else there—in terms of bodily, expressive or communicative, and/or behavioral aspects? 4. During your encounter in the situation, what was the general emotional state you experienced (ex., anger, fear, shock, discomfort, pride, gratitude)? Please explain why you felt that way. 5. During that time of your encounter with a stranger (or strangers), did you think of how to cope with it? If this is the case, describe your situational thoughts, appraisals, or plans you considered at the time. 6. During the time of your encounter with a stranger (or strangers), what did you do (or how did you react) to a stranger (or a handful of strangers) in terms of bodily, expressive or communicative, and/ or behavioral aspects? 7. After your experience of such a memorable occasion or event, did it cause you to alter your perceptions about others in public spaces, to change your daily routines, or to self-monitor your surroundings in New York City? Here, you can answer this query by uttering specific examples of your adaptive plans or maneuvers (e.g., your facial, bodily, or interactional schemes), including some of your own ways to manage your emotions, appropriate strategies of action, and coping behavior in your current public life in New York City.

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that reflect the central features of The Situated Self in Public I and The Situated Self in Public II, respectively. At first, the four statements of The Situated Self in Public I indicated the subjectively situated state of one’s certain perceptions, somatosensory sensations, “nascent consciousness,” and emotions. In the personal world still in the midst of it, emotional elicitation becomes one’s inner conduit for linking The Situated Self in Public I automatically to The Situated Self in Public II. In the meantime, the two statements of The Situated Self in Public II pointed out one’s situational management in both cognitive and behavioral aspects. To figure out the ramifications of the situated self on one’s current public life in New York City, especially on their present-time urban style in public, Table 1.1 further showed an open-ended question about a specific nature of one’s current urban public outlooks and urban public behaviors, some of which arose basically from that particular experience of the situated self. Besides, my survey instrument included some closed-ended questions about my respondents’ demographic information, such as age, gender, ethnic background, education, employment status, residency in New York City, and so on. In the context of urban public life, my respondents to whom this survey instrument was distributed were mostly regular users of some of the New York City public spaces—for example, subway trains, streets, buses, parks, stores, and so on. To me as the researcher of this study, their ages were one of the most important factors to have been considered for the selection of these self-respondents. As revealed in Table  1.2, more than 70% of my survey respondents were in the age range of 18–24, and almost 90% of my respondents were under age 35. But, the majority of them also were a diverse group of young people in terms of their gender and racial and ethnic backgrounds. It was my research design that I should have targeted these diverse groups of people, primarily as my survey respondents. My rationale for this idea was that their personal experience of an unexpected or problematic event, or an unusual stranger encounter, in one of the city’s public spaces would really shape, or reshape, a great deal of their current urban public outlooks and urban public behaviors in the light of their relatively short history in the urban public life and their relatively good capacity for remembering that particular personal experience, largely compared with their counterparts of older people. Along with my focus on this diverse group of young adult New Yorkers as the main target of my survey respondents, another important thing I considered in my research design was to tackle some methodological issues

Table 1.2 Demographic information

Key demographics Age 18-–24 25-–34 35-–49 50-–64 65+ Total Gender Male Female Prefer not to enter Total Ethnic background White Black or African American American Indian or Alaska Native Asian Latino or Hispanic Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander Other Total Education Less than high school High school graduate Some college 2-year degree 4-year degree Professional degree Doctorate Total Employment Employed Unemployed Student Retired Homemaker Self-employed Unable to work Other Total Residency in New York City Yes No Total Work in New York City Yes No Total Attending a School in New York City Yes No Total

Number

Percent (%)

249 56 24 5 6 340

73.24% 16.47% 7.06% 1.47% 1.76% 100.00%

67 270 4 341

19.65% 79.18% 1.17% 100.00%

65 50 0 108 90 3 24 340

19.12% 14.71% 0.00% 31.76% 26.47% 0.88% 7.06% 100.00%

4 55 128 69 74 10 1 341

1.17% 16.13% 37.54% 20.23% 21.70% 2.93% 0.29% 100.00%

125 25 170 4 1 5 6 5 341

36.66% 7.33% 49.85% 1.17% 0.29% 1.47% 1.76% 1.47% 100.00%

304 37 341

89.15% 10.85% 100.00%

228 111 339

67.26% 32.74% 100.00%

320 19 339

94.40% 5.60% 100.00%

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of my study, such as the best ways to approach them, to encourage them to participate in this research survey under the protection of individual privacy, and to receive accurate and reliable information about my survey questions based upon their self-reports in the best of their comfort. With those in mind, I used an online survey platform, known as “Qualtrics,” to distribute my survey instrument and receive their responses by setting it up to turn the recording of their computer IP addresses off for the protection of their individual identities.3 Another strength of this particular research strategy would put no or less time pressure on them as they could respond to the survey at their convenient times. More importantly, this online survey technique would make my respondents answer each of the online survey questions relatively freely and candidly. Largely, these specific survey settings would help alleviate their sense of discomfort to a self-report on the essence of the situated self as well as its ramifications for their present-time urban style in public. To assess my study participants, snowball sampling was used as my recruitment technique (Babbie, 2001, p. 80).4 To do this, first, I asked for the distribution of my online survey link to the students of my colleagues who taught at the four-year university in Midtown Manhattan and at some two-year colleges and four-year universities across the three boroughs of New York City (Manhattan, Bronx, and Brooklyn). Then, I also shared this anonymous online survey link to some of my former students who took one of my courses for the last ten years. In addition, by e-mail, I further contacted the directors, general managers, or presidents of some neighborhood or street block associations in Manhattan’s 12 Community Boards with the aim of requesting them to share this online survey link to their members or neighbors. The period of my data collection was February 4, 2020, through December 31, 2020. My respondents of this study, as a really diverse group of people, varied from person to person in their self-report of the question of what is their most memorable experience in their personal history of public life in New York City. Thus, the personal experience of an unanticipated or problematic event that each of my respondents came across in one of its public spaces was exclusively distinctive both in fact and in content. Moreover, the key themes or issues of that personal particular experience across my respondents could be figured out through the contents of their self-reports that described their answers to the two open-ended questions under the section of The Situated Self in Public I in Table 1.1: (2) “State the details of such a personal experience, including the general situation and specific

1 INTRODUCTION 

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nature of that problematic, unusual, or disruptive matter, incident, or event, as well as your speculated information about the general or observed profile of that stranger (or a handful of strangers) with whom you were encountered, or when you were one of the bystanders, at that time”; and (3) “During the time of your encounter with—or your observation to—a stranger (or a handful of strangers), what specifically did that stranger (or a handful of strangers) do to you—or someone else there—in terms of bodily, expressive or communicative, and/or behavioral aspects?” To identify a key theme in each of their self-reports, one of my analytic schemes was to look for one of the most important topics after enlisting some of the central issues or problems each respondent described or implicated in that particular public experience in the city. This simple classification scheme was also done under my stance that my subjective metaphors or analogy should be avoided as much as possible so as to grasp the most telling aspects in those words, phrases, and passages each respondent stated in it. In doing so, I could come up with a list of principal themes. On the whole, most of my respondents’ self-reports epitomized a particular theme clearly in response to the study question of stating their most unforgettable public experience in the city. Though not many (only 10 out of 341 cases), then there were some implicit cases that were hard to pinpoint one of their major themes: these cases were excluded from the analysis. Overall, a total of nine distinctive themes or issues could be identified on the basis of the afore-mentioned classification scheme. These final nine themes, which are described in the following chapters, are public harassment, racism, crime, rudeness, kindness, panhandling, exhibition, conversation, and filthiness, respectively. Table  1.3 presented some keywords or issues from each of these nine major themes.

Organization of the Book This book is composed of seven chapters, in total. This first chapter has introduced the purpose of this book and my rationales for the importance of studying the subjective experience of the situated self, overviewing its theoretical framework and rationalizing the use of a self-report (or a self-­ account) as the principal methodology to demonstrate it. At the core of this chapter has been my conceptual framework of the situated self—The Situated Self in Public I and The Situated Self in Public II—that arose, naturally and temporarily, in the personal world while faced with, or while observing, an unanticipated or problematic event or the stranger

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Table 1.3  A list of the nine main themes Main themes

Number Issues

Public harassment

73

Public racism

21

Public crime

21

Public rudeness

48

Public kindness

96

Public panhandling

22

Public exhibition

16

Public conversation Public filthiness Total

24 10

Exploitation (e.g., touching, grabbing, pinching, hitting, spitting, throwing, approaching, or chasing) Evaluation (e.g., flattery, critical commentary, catcalling, insults, contempt, or other verbal abuses) Racial remarks (e.g., slurs, insults, or curses) Offensive racist gestures or bodily movements Race-based physical assault or violence Robbery or mugging (e.g., completed or attempted theft, with or without injury) Aggravated assault (e.g., any unlawful attack to another person’s body) Movement and space management (e.g., blocking, pushing, bumping, or space invasion) Breaking basic decorum or etiquettes in public settings Inappropriate reactions toward someone’s misconduct Someone’s ignorance of public norm Helping a hand or helping out Expressing care or warmth Displaying civility or kindness in deed Mild or persuasive panhandling (e.g., storytelling, using a cardboard sign, appealing to someone’s sympathy, providing service, or giving a greeting) Aggressive panhandling (e.g., evoke fear, guilt, or intimidation to someone) Positivity (e.g., music or dance performance in a proper situation) Negativity (e.g., public entertainment or speech in an inappropriate situation) Watching other public scenes such as police activity Amiable chat or conversation with the unfamiliar persons Tense or hostile argument between unknown people Someone’s bizarre behaviors or unpleasant smell in a public space

331

encounter in one of the New York City public spaces in the past. Chapter 2 focuses on some factual information about what was each of my respondents’ unanticipated, shocking, or problematic occasion they met by chance in one of the city’s public spaces. Specifically, some important information on that personal urban experience in public includes its time

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and location (e.g., a particular time and place), their situational placement (e.g., a victim, a bystander, a companion, or an initiator), the demographics and other characteristics of all the people directly or indirectly involved in it (e.g., their age, gender, race, and ethnicity), and its other situational backgrounds (e.g., on a crowded or empty subway, walking alone or together at night, their public activities before its occurrence). Another piece of important information about it is one of its key situational issues. In this regard, there followed a total of nine major themes in classifying all the self-reported cases: public harassment, racism, crime, rudeness, kindness, panhandling, exhibition, conversation, and filthiness. Under each of these nine themes, describing factual information about some of the related cases is the very mainstay of this chapter. Chapters 3 through 5 demonstrate the essence (or entity) of the situated self in the framework of an unanticipated event with which some of my respondents were faced, or that the others observed, in one of the city’s public spaces. In particular, Chap. 3 is set to underline the first phase of the situated self that integrates their situational perceptions at the moment of its occurrence, somatosensory sensations, “nascent consciousness,” and emotional elicitation together. This is what I called The Situated Self in Public I. During this internal clock of such a particular situational time, their inner elicitation of certain emotions alludes to their self-­ evocation or self-assurance of something important in their personal orientations which concept characterizes themselves as a unique individuality (the private character of the self or human autonomy), and at the same time, which concept also stresses their group identity as a member of a particular community or society (the collective nature of the self or human community). There are three different sections in this chapter: (1) human autonomy; (2) human community; and (3) human intersectionality intersecting the first two. Under each of these three separate sections, this phase of The Situated Self in Public I is shown to be manifest through the delineations of some self-reported cases. Chapters 4 and 5 highlight the constitution, nature, and process of the second phase of the situated self, known as The Situated Self in Public II. While faced with, or while observing, that unanticipated or problematic event in one of the city’s public spaces, one’s emotional experience becomes the personal momentum to link these two different phases of the situated self—The Situated Self in Public I and The Situated Self in Public II—together, and one’s emotional arousal at the time also becomes the

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starting point for a stream of both one’s situational consciousness and behavioral self-management. Thus, for either one of the victims or one of the bystanders at the time, the type and intensity of one’s inner emotions would be central to the self-construction of the situational cognition and/ or the behavioral reaction. More specifically, Chap. 4 demonstrates this subject matter through each of the five victim groups: vigilant agents, instinctive defenders, situational receptors, situational escapers, and fractured agents. Similarly, Chap. 5 also demonstrates this same subject of The Situated Self in Public II through each of the five bystander (passersby or observer) groups: situational observers, situational stayers, situational regulars, situational avoiders, and situational participants. Chapter 6 demonstrates the continued vibrancy of their personal public experience that occurred in one of the New York City public spaces, in the framework of their present-time urban style in public. Indeed, that particular public experience in one’s urban life would provide oneself an important part of their present-time urban style in public, which largely comprises one’s current urban public outlooks (e.g., vigilance, indifference, openness) and urban public behaviors (e.g., physical distance, self-engagement, facial gestures, bodily posture, or movement). My point here is that this particular urban experience in public has a very significant implication for their personalized public life in the city, both at the present time and in the future. In turn, the emergence of a new form of their present-time urban style in public would be identified in line with that particular personal experience in this chapter. Chapter 7 discusses a summary of this book and the importance of phenomenological approach to the study of a personal urban life in public spaces, particularly to describing the whole of one’s subjective and situational experience about an unexpected public event and to explaining its further implications for the person’s current public life in New York City. Furthermore, this chapter presents a substantial contribution of my theoretical and methodological approach—that is, an in-depth study on the essence of a particular human experience in the real world from a first-­ person point of view and with more than a dozen of new concepts (e.g., the situated self, personal orientations, their present-time urban style in public)—to the broad range of the academic literature on urbanism, urban ways of life, and urban problems.

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Notes 1. In this book, phenomenology is also understood as one’s particular experience of space at a particular time, not a period of one’s lived experiences of a place that pertains to a long memory, sentiment, sense of belonging or identity, and affectivity. 2. My research protocol was reviewed by the CUNY Human Research Protection Program (the HRPP file number 2020-0003) on 02/04/2020, and it was determined that my research study met the criteria for exemption, in accordance with CUNY HRPP Procedures: Human Subject Research Exempt from IRB Review. 3. Qualtrics is a web-based (or an online) tool to conduct survey research and distribute an anonymous link of their survey to large groups of people via email or any mode of communication they use with their recipients (or their targeted respondents). Then, anyone who clicks on the link will be able to take the survey. For researchers conducting their surveys through Qualtrics, they can also collect and analyze data (or their responses). For more information, see the webpage of Qualtrics: https://www.qualtrics.com/ 4. Snowball sampling technique is a data collection method by asking some members of the target population to reach out to other members of that population who can also ask other members of the target population to respond to the survey. It is often used when the research subjects are very difficult to identify.

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CHAPTER 2

The Public Setting of an Unexpected Experience in New York City

For each of my respondents, an urban public experience they described on their own account corresponds to an unanticipated or problematic event they had encountered, or observed, in one of the New York City public spaces in the past. One thing that is common among many different types of its public spaces—for example, a street, a sidewalk, a subway train, a bus, a park, a plaza, a bar, or a store—is the fact that each of these city locations is either an open region or facility freely, or a semi-open one largely, accessible to the general public. From a first-person perspective, their personal experience of that particular public event in the city is the occasion with which they were, suddenly and directly, faced or that they merely observed as one of its bystanders. As for its situational setting on their personal stance, there exist three broad yet different parts: (1) an unanticipated breaking, distraction, or interference of their own routinized activities in one of the city’s public spaces because of an unavoidable encounter with a stranger (or a group of strangers); (2) a problematic, disruptive, or unusual situation or event they observed there by chance; and (3) an abrupt public occasion related to a positive thing or outcome from a stranger (or a handful of strangers) toward another (e.g., giving a hand). In general, this kind of unique personal experience in one of the city’s public spaces was something that they had had a direct or indirect relationship with an unfamiliar stranger (or a group of unacquainted people), © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J.-H. Oh, A Public Encounter in New York City, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30964-9_2

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whether negative or positive. To each of them, a typical public relationship with the other urban strangers at the time was usually unexpected, non-­ recurring, and in the short-term in nature. Nonetheless, still this sort of urban public relationship, even though temporary, would play a powerful role in constructing their current urban public outlooks (e.g., vigilance, coolness, dissociation, indifference, open-mindedness, mistrust, self-­ focus) and urban public behaviors (e.g., bodily management or practices, gestural adjustment, facial or verbal expressions). Chapter 6 of this book will specifically deal with this subject that such personal experience of their momentary, one-time public relationship with a stranger (or a group of strangers) in the city would be important for shaping their present-time urban style in public, that is, their typical urban public outlooks and urban public behaviors for their current public life in New York City. In Chaps. 3, 4, and 5 of this book, the question of what is, from their own subjective point of view, the essence of that public occasion at the very time when they were faced with, or were observing, it—broadly expressed as the constitution, character, and situational process of its subjective experience, or also coined as the situated self—will be discussed through the self-reported accounts of my respondents (e.g., one of its victims, targets, or bystanders) more systematically and in depth. The main goal of this chapter is to describe a situational background, a defining issue, a degree of self-involvement, and a particular form of public social relationship with the others at the time after classifying each respondent’s particular public experience in the city into one of the nine major themes, as addressed in Chap. 1: public harassment, racism, crime, rudeness, kindness, panhandling, exhibition, conversation, and filthiness. Thus, this chapter is basically set to show my justification of this thematic classification that accompanies the detailed descriptions of some self-­ reported cases relevant to each of these nine thematical categories, respectively. Without a doubt, the most important way for classifying the total of 331 self-reported cases into one of these nine distinctive themes was to focus on the defining issue of such a personal experience on the basis of their situational placement (e.g., one of its victims or targets, one of its bystanders or initiators). For some respondents laid out under the same theme of public harassment, for example, their personal placements in the situation were one of the hapless victims of public harassment from someone else totally unknown to themselves. Likewise, some of my other respondents, as one of the bystanders at the time of the public event they had met by chance in the city, observed a similar kind of public social

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relationship in which somebody there harassed, or would be ready to harass, the other harmless pedestrian(s) on the street, for example. Although the features and patterns of public social relationships are very decisive in sorting out all the self-reported cases into one of these aforementioned nine major themes, it is no doubt that the contents of these individual self-­reports vary from case to case. Beyond both of the defining issue of a public event (or a stranger encounter) and their own situational placement in it, indeed, there were other situational and personal factors to make their urban public experience at the time unique and very special to themselves. By and large, these other situational forces were: a specific time of its occurrence (e.g., in the early morning, at midday, or at night, during the rush hour or not, on a weekday or on a weekend); a particular type of public space or its specific location in the city (e.g., on the sidewalk, in a public plaza, within or out of their own neighborhood, inside or outside a subway train, on the bus, in a store, in a public park); my respondents’ personal reasons for their physical presence there before its occurrence (e.g., going to work or school, going back home); the speculative identities of the other persons directly or indirectly involved in it (e.g., a same subway or bus rider or commuter, a pedestrian, a homeless person, a panhandler, a customer, a tourist); their situational emotions; and their situational thoughts and behavioral tendencies or displays. In what follows, some of my respondents’ self-reports relevant to each of these nine major themes are sequentially illustrated on a first-person account. Rather than trying to prove any new concepts or theoretical approaches I argued in the first chapter of this book, this chapter aims to describe some details of the self-reported cases that fit into each of these nine major themes.

Public Harassment Public harassment can be understood as the strangers’ abuses, harryings, or annoyances against some unacquainted people in a same public space (Gardner, 1995, p. 4). In my study, all the self-reported cases of public harassment could be classified into two broad parts. The first segment of public harassment is generally identified as exploitation (or exploitative practices) which specific units in kind include touching, grabbing, pinching, stroking, following, and scrutiny (Gardner, 1995, pp.  79–81, 132–141). Moreover, hitting, other vulgar conducts (e.g., throwing, spitting), and unwelcome approaching can be further included in this first

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classification of public harassment. Another segment of public harassment is evaluation (or evaluative practices) that reflects various forms of street remarks, such as flattery, critical commentary, name calling (or catcalling), insults, contempt, or other verbal and non-verbal abuses (Gardner, 1995, pp. 82–85, 141–148). To elucidate the first segment of public harassment, it can be further re-grouped into the six distinctive but somewhat connected units: touching; hitting or fighting; scrutiny; vulgar conduct; approaching; and following. The scope of touching, as its first unit, also encompasses pushing, groping, and prodding. As for this specific unit of public harassment, for example, some of my respondents expressed their personal experience on it in the following ways: “I was touched inappropriately by a man who was standing directly behind me”; “He grabbed my elbow”; “I had seen others being groped on the train during the rush hour”; “There was a much larger man standing behind me and I felt he had touched my butt”; “The guy was coming toward me and tried to touch me”; or “I witnessed two strangers in a heated exchange over who pushed who on the very crowded train.” As one of the self-reported cases about this unit of public harassment, my respondent, a white woman aged 18–24 who grew up in a very religious conservative home, described her experience on the subway one afternoon, including her emotional state at the moment when a stranger there assaulted her: I was on the subway returning home from school when a man came to stand over me and held onto the bar above me. Normally, this would not be unusual. However, it was in the middle of the afternoon and the train car was empty so that it was a little strange. I was sitting with a friend and we carried on with our conversation. The man continued leaning forward and came closer to me. The few others on the train car seemed uncomfortable by how close this man, who looked probably triple my age, was to me. Then one moment this man stuck his hand between my legs … I was in shock, I felt discomfort, and a little hopeless as my privacy was completely violated in a public place.

The second unit for the first type of public harassment is hitting (or slapping) or fighting that can be largely identified as a one-sided physical stroke or a bi- or multilateral physical confrontation between two or more unfamiliar people in a public space. For example, some literal expressions that my respondents wrote in a sentence or so about this particular

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experience of public harassment were: “A man randomly attacked a woman sitting next to him” [on the train]; “I saw a couple of men beating each other up” [on the moving train]; “A man hit me” [outside a gym]; “She continued to follow me … She put her hands on me and we both got into a physical fight”; “I was making my way home from school when a fight broke out on a moving train”; or “[a] mother and a father were fighting on the train platform.” As a case in point, a college student, a white woman aged 18–24, described her personal experience of having been hit by an unfamiliar man in the Lower East Side and East Village area off Houston street in Manhattan: A friend and I were walking through the small park looking at the murals painted on the concrete walls surrounding the park. At one point, my friend and I came to part from each other to look at different murals, and I was passing a man who was walking alone. When I was passing by him, he slapped my butt, and then, he quickly walked away. I yelled something at him. I walked over to my friend and told her what had happened, and we left and walked back to my apartment. We didn’t talk the whole way there … I felt ashamed that I had just been violated publicly like that.

Scrutiny, known as the third unit for the first broad type of public harassment (exploitation), is “the free gaze and minute inspection of others” that are considered to be a breach of public manners (Gardner, 1995, p.  79). Other terms, synonymous with it, can be gazing (or staring), watching, pointing, or inspecting. Five of my respondents stated this aspect of public harassment as their most memorable experience in the whole history of their public life in New York City. Coincidently, all these five respondents were women, whereas all their watchers (provokers or offenders) were men. These women were inspected offensively by these male strangers on the street, on a bus, or on a subway train. During their situational encounter, their individual experiences were very different: “This man sitting across from me on the same bench [in a subway train car] started staring at me and I could see him through my peripheral vision, but I pretended to take no notice of him”; “I was simply sitting at the end of one train car minding my business, but when I looked up from my phone, I saw a man watching me”; “When I was about 8–10 years old … I had boarded the bus [with my mother]… This older man was looking at me up and down while licking his lips”; “I was standing in the bus and a group of girls were sitting down and began making derisory

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comments on my scarf”; or “I’ve always noticed the little similarities that my friend has with Rihanna … Suddenly, this strange person walked forward to my friend and started looking straight into her eyes within a distance less than one foot.” In public spaces, certain intentional, malicious acts of some strangers against another amount to vulgar conducts. Most of the time, the former’s malevolent conducts caused my respondents (one of its victims or bystanders) to feel distasteful, fearful, upset, or irritated. In particular, molesting, spitting, and kicking or throwing objects are among the most common types of such vulgar conducts that some of my respondents experienced in one of the city’s public spaces. For example, one respondent recounted her experience of a sexual molestation by an unidentified man in her year of middle school on a crowded street in Queens while she was waiting for her grandparents doing grocery shopping at the time. Unfortunately, she was molested by that unknown man for approximately five minutes who stood close behind her. As another case, a stain of spit on the back of his upper garment was a really irritating discovery of one of my male respondents, an African-American man, after returning home and taking it off. As one of the self-reported cases that involved kicking or throwing objects, the public occasion that an urban stranger kicked the stand of a street vendor and threw some items on it away was regarded as the most memorable experience of her urban life in public to my respondent, a Hispanic woman aged 18–24. Likewise, an Asian female college student was confronted with an unacquainted person who conducted an obscene behavior against her on the train: I got onto the train, and I had my Latin textbook with me as I was studying. I took a seat next to a man. When I was turning the pages of the book, I realized that he was masturbating while looking at me and hiding his genitals under his jacket. So, I immediately got up, and ran in a hurry to the other side of its cart … I experienced incredible fear, shock, anger, sickness, and that was something any woman shouldn’t have experienced. I started crying because it was really a disgusting thing that I shouldn’t have watched.

In a public setting, approaching, as another unit of exploitation, is meant to be a stranger’s (or a group of strangers’) acts of walking or moving straightly toward or of coming suddenly close to another there. One of my respondents, an Asian woman, was approached by a drunk man who

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had walked in zigzag late at night but toward her direction even though she had walked around in Manhattan with her two other friends at that time. As another example, one of my female respondents experienced strong feelings of discomfort and shock when she had walked outdoor with her friends for lunch in the afternoon. It was because “a man who seemed to be very violent with some unknown reason was walking towards us like he was about to have an argument with us.” As another example, at her middle-school age, the public encounter with a man approaching and speaking to her for directions was described by another female respondent: “The person that stopped me was a guy who was in his car and was asking for directions … The guy asked if I can show him the place that he wanted to go, and then, said to me that he would drop me off at school after that.” Following is the sixth and last unit for the first type of public harassment, here exploitation. From the angle of those persons being followed on the street or in another public space, their personal recognition of that unanticipated occasion can definitely be a fearful moment, or for each of them, this can be regarded as “menacing even if they have no ill outcome or do not involve much in the way of close contacts” with any unfamiliar strangers (Gardner, 1995, p. 132). Eight of my respondents described this public matter of following as their most unforgettable experience in their personal history of public life in New York City. For example, one of them expressed her feelings of fear and discomfort on the night of Halloween when “the stranger chased after my friends and me and started making scary noises.” Another respondent, a female college student of Hispanic background, had a similar experience that “[he] started to follow me with no reason until he reached the middle of the street” on her way to school. Another female respondent described her awful experience of having been followed from a stranger on the subway train: “This event took place on a crowded F train while I was attempting to come home from work one evening back in the winter of 2015 … I was simply sitting at the end of one train car, and when I looked up from my phone, I saw a man watching me. So, I got up quickly and moved to another cart, but I also saw him moving between its carts to follow me.” A wide range of street remarks by the strangers toward—or against— the pedestrians or the bus or train riders are the second broad type of public harassment, that is, evaluation (or evaluative practices). Street remarks are “evaluative, advisory, or other types of expressive comments delivered by the stranger to another” in public spaces (Gardner, 1995,

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p.  142). After sorting out all the self-reported cases of my respondents who emphasized their particular public experience pertinent to this second type of public harassment, it can be further divided into two general categories. Its first category in a public setting is flattery that is about a stranger’s verbal, mostly inviting, expressions or unsolicited comments to receive a passerby’s attention. Catcalling, compliments, and greetings belong to its specific units. For example, some of my female respondents, while in one of the city’s public spaces, received a stranger’ comments about some aspects of her appearance (e.g., beautiful, cute, or tall), a stranger’s surprising expression of his desire “to take me out on a date,” or the public comment of “a middle-aged man who told me I was beautiful and asked for my number.” One respondent, an Asian woman aged 18–24, stated the setting and content of the catcalling problem that she had experienced in her own neighborhood, along with her state of feelings in the situation: In my walk home from school, it was pretty quiet and isolated. I didn’t worry about it too much because I used to walk home in broad daylight. Then one day, an unfamiliar man was standing on by the curb, and I assumed that he was waiting to cross the street. Unfortunately, he catcalled me. The stranger called me beautiful and said some other rude remarks to get my attention … I was scared, disturbed and disgusted. I always feel uncomfortable in catcalling situations, but this incident made me especially uncomfortable as it happened in my own neighborhood and not even a minute away from my house.

A stranger’s verbal abuses or shouted expressions toward another in the same public space are the second category of street remarks that are also part of the second broad type of public harassment, that is, evaluation. It includes the former’s yelling, cursing, insults, and any threatening expressions to the latter. Some of my respondents, both female and male, were the targets or the actual victims of such kinds of public harassment. An occasion of this kind happened on the street, on the subway platform, in the subway train, on the bus, or in a shop. For instance, some of them, who had become a target of this uncivil act from an unfamiliar stranger in one of the city’s public spaces, described their own experience in the following ways; “He screamed and cursed at me with some negative comments”; “After the train started moving, a man next to me started shouting ‘Kill’ randomly”; “A guy started yelling at all the train passengers”; or

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“[t]he stranger who was wearing all black and had their face covered started cursing at me.” One of my respondents witnessed a strange man’s verbal abuse with a physical threat to a pregnant woman on the subway train, writing its situational context in detail: There are certain trains that have a two-seat bench right next to the doors and the end of the carts. A man, about 25 years old, was sitting on this two-­ seated bench with his book-bag put on the empty seat by him. He clearly did not want anyone to sit on next to him. We went about 2–3 stops when a woman around the same age got on the train and asked if she could sit on that unoccupied seat. She was very polite about it when she asked him, however, his response was nothing close to be polite at all. First, he started to laugh to himself, then he looked at her with this death stare, and said ‘NO.’ She then said, ‘Please, I’m pregnant, I just want to sit.’ He then stood up so fast and cocked his fist back like he was about to punch her, and when she flinched he laughed and sat back down. This all happened while the train was on the move.

Overall, regardless of racial/ethnic backgrounds and age, usually, female New Yorkers became typical victims (or targets) of public harassment. As an exception, there were a few self-reported cases that some men also were one of the victims of public harassment committed by another while in one of the city’s public spaces.

Public Racism A personal experience of racism in one of the New York City public spaces in the past was the most memorable one among some of my respondents who self-identified themselves as members from one of diverse ethnic and racial minorities (e.g., blacks, Hispanics, Asians, or Jews), or who had observed these people as the targets of racism from someone else (e.g., other ethnic and racial minority members, whites, or the police). Racism in a public setting, or public racism, is referred to as explicit or implicit racial and ethnic remarks (e.g., slurs, insults, curses), offensive racist gestures or bodily movements, or a physical attack or violence against these racial and ethnic minority members from someone else (here, the latter) both of whom were completely unknown to each other but were placed together by chance in a same public space. In other words, public racism is a certain form of discrimination that is, at the personal level, any verbal or behavioral assault of the latter against members of particular ethnic and

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racial minority groups in public spaces. It is distinguishable from prejudice definable as “a negative emotion or affective feeling toward the target group” and stereotype as “a poorly founded belief” about these particular members of society (Quillian, 2006). Indeed, owing to the external marks of physical appearance and/or a foreign language spoken, these targeted population of public racism were often judged or assaulted by some unacquainted strangers who were often ingrained with their self-belief (stereotype) and stored negative emotions (prejudice) against the former. Personal episodes of a group of my respondents who had faced or observed a specific kind of public racism diverged in terms of its setting, the personal identities of its abusers (or offenders) or its victims (or its targets), and the nature and seriousness of a public relationship in it. In those various cases of public racism (or discrimination), offensive racist languages were the most frequently made point. Since early March in 2020 up to now, the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic, formally named as “the COVID-19,” has immensely affected the whole United States, including New York City, one of the nation’s hot zones during the earlier stages of this crisis because of sizeable numbers of people being tested positive and its death toll. Due to unconfirmed rumors that the COVID-19 pandemic originally started in the city of Wuhan, China, and spread rapidly throughout the United States and all over the world, the blame turned mainly to Asians or Asian Americans in the United States. One respondent, who identified herself as “Other” in the question item of race and ethnicity, observed an incident of racist verbal abuse against an old Asian man at a train station in Brooklyn: I was waiting for a subway train at Jay Street MetroTech to go home from school. The event happened a few weeks ago. Given the present state of our country, a homeless guy saw an Asian old man and started shouting at him. He kept telling him to leave as he did not want to get infected, and this public tumult just happened due to a totally different race to each other. He crossed the personal space of the old man, but it happened so fast that nobody had time to say anything. It was definitely a disrupting event.

Comparably, South Asians and Muslims in America have also been the population groups at high risk of someone’s offensive racial remarks in public spaces, which were, above all, caused incessantly by the backlash from the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, on the American soil by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda. One female respondent of Asian

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background described her past experience closely related to this specific issue, which had occurred on the subway on a Friday evening: My sister and I (both hijabis) were standing near the middle doors of the train car. My sister was reading a psychology article … An elderly male (a person of color), who was standing near us, questioned my sister about the article that she was reading. She responded to him since she didn’t see any harm in the interaction. He nodded, and then, he remained quiet for a couple of minutes. Soon, he started to say something to us, but we couldn’t make out what he was saying, so we asked him to repeat it. He repeated in a louder voice and said, ‘You know 9/11, what do you think about it?’ We immediately turned our attention away, and he began murmuring more things about 9/11 with his eyes onto our direction … I felt very shocked during this encounter because I didn’t expect this reaction from someone who was a person of color.

No matter how long Asian Americans have lived in the United States, they are very vulnerable to nativist racism from which they have been treated sometimes negatively on such stereotypes as unwelcome immigrants, organized criminals, or forever foreigners (Ancheta, 1998; Kim, 2007). This also holds true for both Hispanic Americans and African Americans, as well. The phrase “go back to your country” is such a typical token of verbal racism some of my respondents, identifying as “Black or African American,” “Asian,” or “Latino or Hispanic” in the survey item of racial and ethnic background, were heard from somebody else in one of the city’s public spaces. For instance, one female respondent, identified as “Latino or Hispanic,” was one of the bystanders in such a public occasion on the subway train while coming back home with her family over the summer: “A lady yelled at a Hispanic guy for no reason and told him to go back to Mexico … I felt discomfort and anger, and I was also scared and cried. She targeted my race being brown.” Likewise, just anyone of either blackness, yellowness, or brownness in human phenotypes can be possibly gone through as an easy target of unsolicited racist comments in public spaces. According to the self-report from one male respondent of Hispanic background, he parked his car in an unacquainted neighborhood for a while to have a long conversation with his father in the car about a topic important to his family, hearing a middle-­ aged white woman who came out from her house shouting them to leave immediately. Besides, inappropriate or despicable comments on the basis of race are other expressions of offensive racist languages. For example,

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what some of my respondents had heard unexpectedly from a stranger directly toward herself or a friend with her or indirectly toward another in one of the city’s public spaces was: “A Middle-Eastern man was speaking loudly on the cellphone in Arabic and a middle-aged white man began attacking him for speaking a different language by claiming that this was America and that it was important to speak only English”; “You’re in America, you should really learn to speak English”; or “[s]he can’t read. Didn’t you hear her speak Spanish when she came on the train?” Moreover, the scope of offensive racial languages further includes various types of ethnic and religious slurs. A white female respondent witnessed such a situation with her friends on the subway train: “Shortly after we got on, two individuals (two African-American men) began screaming hateful and anti-Semitic comments to a visibly Sephardi Jew on the train. This continued for more than two stops and did not end until the Jewish man finally walked off at a stop without ever engaging with the anti-­ Semitic men … As a Jewish young adult, I felt discouraged, scared, and so angry that this was occurring.” The second broad form of public racism is offensive racist gestures or bodily movements. When members of racial and ethnic minorities come to appear in a public space of New York City, they might sometimes meet with an unwelcome gaze or uncomfortable bodily expressions or movements from one of the strangers (or a small group of strangers) there. For example, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic happened to put one of my female respondents into the public target of the strangers’ bodily expressions: “Three young male teenagers I believe, were White Caucasians, and I was Asian. They were quite offensive to me even though they were trying to play it off. It was during this time that the COVID-19 was becoming more and more of an issue in NYC. Suddenly, they looked up at me, but I pretended to look away, then they pretended to cough by covering their mouths and noses at the same time.” As another case for this type of public racism, one female respondent of African-American background experienced it on the subway train on her way home from a public library one day: “I walked on a train cart being tired with a hooded winter coat on, and I was about to sit down next to a person there. All of a sudden, this white man quickly got up and ran onto the next cart. I followed him to figure out why he did that … I was very troubled, confused. I didn’t know what I had done … When I followed him up to the next cart, he told me that ‘you know that your people don’t

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know how to act, I didn’t know what to do, so I ran’ … There are people out there who really aren’t okay with my skin color.” Any acts of race-based aggression or violence in one of the city’s public spaces can be treated as the sign that culminates in public racism. Especially, racial violence in public could be something that may stem largely from its offenders’ antipathy, abomination, or hatred against, or their negative stereotypes about, members of certain ethnic and racial minorities, or a combination of both. In this respect, they, as its potential targets, couldn’t feel always safe whenever out in the city’s public spaces. One of my respondents, an Asian woman, observed such an unfortunate incident on the crowded subway: “One time, in the subway, one African-American woman tried to push a Muslim girl because she was wearing a hijab. The girl was frightened, she hopped into my subway cart, and she was scared … I felt really shocked because I never heard of or seen anything like this before.” As another example, my respondent of Asian background, who came to the United States five years ago, described his shocking experience at his senior year of high school while he had been walking to a train station in Brooklyn with one of his friends: “My friend and I were assaulted by three other kids probably around the same age as me. These three teenagers were of African-American background … They expressed their racist remarks with verbal abuses, bodily gestures, and physical assaults. They even expressed common signs of aggression, such as raised voice, puffed out chest, clenched fists, and pressing attitude … we were finally left bruises on our body and scraps on our face … they have no reason to attack us.” Again, in this specific case, physical violence against this respondent and his friend occurred simultaneously with offensive racist remarks from their assailants. In big cities like New York City where millions of people from diverse racial, ethnic, and national backgrounds come to appear in its various public spaces every day, public racism, whatever the reasons are, must be an anathema to all people who have a high regard for New York City in terms of its great diversity of people, cultures, interests, and activities. In much the same sense, this also seemed to hold true for those of my respondents who had been unfortunately one of its direct victims or bystanders in such an occasion of public racism.

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Public Crime While having appeared in one of the New York City public spaces, some of my respondents became either a target or an observer of one of two types of criminal or unlawful acts committed by another—either robbery or aggravated assault. According to Bureau of Justice Statistics, robbery is defined as “completed or attempted theft, directly from a person, of property or cash by force or threat of force, with or without a weapon, and with or without injury.”1 Correspondingly, the term “mugging” is an act of robbing someone in a public space. Here, an attempt to take property without injury is one category of robbery.2 This specific type of robbery was experienced by one respondent, a white woman, near her neighborhood in the Manhattan’s Lower East Side late at night one day: As I was walking home … There was a group of four young men who began to approach me, and I didn’t feel threatened due to the nature of the environment. Although it was late, there was plenty of light and protection as well as other people around. All of a sudden, these four men ran fast at me, one of them trying to grab my takeaway bag and crashing into my arm at the same time. I yelled, and they quickly ran away.

A concerted effort to prevent a likely incident on this type of public robbery was articulated by another respondent, a Hispanic man aged 25–34: I was with my coworkers. We just left work, and we decided to go to a bar where a mutual friend to us was a bartender. As we were waiting for the train, we noticed that a pair of teenagers kept looking over at a woman. She must’ve been in her early 30’s. My coworkers and I decided to walk over to where that woman was standing. The teenagers didn’t notice us. So, they continued to inch closer to the woman, and they kept staring at her phone. She was totally oblivious to her surroundings. As the teens kept getting closer, my coworker said to them, ‘What’s up with y’all? You guys are alright? Y’all need the time or something?’ They looked up at him and then at us (we were a group of 5), and they shook their heads and walked away. We told the woman that they were plotting to snatch her phone. We told her to be careful, and she thanked us.

In a public setting, someone’s fortuitous encounter from a suspicious stranger with the subsequent threat or physical attack might result in the

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loss of some property the latter possessed. In describing the concept of robbery narrowly as the completion of property taken without injury, for example, one male respondent aged 35–49 experienced this sort of robbery while he had been on the bus almost 12  years ago: “I was sitting across from the door on a very crowded bus, looking down at my phone. Suddenly, I felt a blow to my shoulder, and my phone was ripped out of my hands. At first, I thought it was a joke, but the door across from me was smashed open by the person who took my phone.” The completion of property taken with minor injury is another category of robbery. One respondent, an Asian woman aged 35–49, was once encountered with someone’s offending act of robbing and attacking her husband on a Brooklyn street near her home in the winter of 2012: “My husband and I were coming back home from our visit to my friend’s home. Two blocks away from our home a group of about 5 to 6 teenagers attacked my husband and took his iPhone … They rounded us up on the sidewalk, and one guy punched my husband. When he fell down on the ground, they snatched his phone and ran away.” Bureau of Justice Statistics defines aggravated assault as “the unlawful attack by one person upon another for the purpose of inflicting severe or aggravated bodily injury, usually accompanied by the use of a weapon or by other means likely to produce death or great bodily harm.”3 A couple of my respondents observed such a criminal act while out in one of the New York City public spaces. One of them, a white man aged 50–64, described such a particular occasion that had taken place at the subway station in Queens in the January afternoon of 2019: A fight broke out in my subway cart after the train pulled into the station. The victim was being chased and two other guys were beating him up as he got onto the car. When he exited the cart to try to get away from him, they finally knocked him to the platform where a skirmish ensued. During it, someone pulled out a 9 mm semi-automatic pistol and executed the victim lying on the platform with a series of shots. I heard of ‘pop, pop, pop’ sounds, and I got caught up with all the other passengers running the opposite way and ducked behind a garbage can.

In general, a specific form of robbery—for example, the completion of property taken, its completion with or without injury, or an attempt to take property with or without injury—became the most frequent type of

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public crime among some of my respondents who had described it as their most memorable public experience in New York City.

Public Rudeness I define public rudeness as a sort of a stranger’s (or a group of strangers’) verbal or non-verbal (facial, bodily, or physical) expressions of incivilities against someone else in the setting of public spaces. In this light, there exist some subtle distinctions between public rudeness and public harassment in meaning. At first, public rudeness, unlike public harassment, is a kind of the strangers’ explicit misbehaviors toward the unknown others because of an unavoidable circumstance (e.g., in a crowded train or bus) under which such acts seem to have accidentally or carelessly happened without having much intent to harm the latter from the former. This type of public rudeness is often related to “movement and space management”—for example, pushing, blocking, bumping into each other (Smith et al., 2010). Some of my respondents were exposed to this kind of public rudeness usually either in a crowded train or on the bus. For instance, one respondent, female and African American, put her experience on it in the following way: “I got on the crowded train and stood by the door, with my bag still tightly on. Usually if I am in the middle of the train, I would take my bag off to make space for other people. Since I was leaning on the door, there was no need for that. At the 59th street station, this white man tried to make his way into the train by pushing me too hard and kept saying ‘Move in. Move in.’ There was clearly no more space in the train, but he still decided to rudely push me.” Another respondent, an African-American woman aged 25–34, observed the space invasion of a male passenger on the train: “There was this woman sitting on the train. She was rather small in body size and did not take up that much space. A male person boarded our train car and sat next to that woman. Although she was not taking up that much space, there was not that much space between her and the person next to her. That male rider that had entered the train squeezed forcibly and cruelly next to her and sat down with his legs even widely spread. As a result, his rude behavior caused the woman to press against the metal border of the seats so that the man could sit comfortably taking up a lot of space that the woman had previously occupied.” Like public harassment, public rudeness also has to do with the breaking of a set of informal public rules. However, unlike public harassment

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that should be blamed not only from the persons of its target but also from anyone with common sense, some words or acts about public rudeness were often defended by its offenders (or its initiators) themselves who consider their behaviors as a personal matter, an unavoidable encounter, or a legitimate demand. Another respondent, female and white, observed an inappropriate behavior of a mother to her daughter on the train: “One time I was taking the A train on my night class. A mother and her daughter got in the car. I assumed she picked her up from school because the girl still had her uniform on. The mother started to scream at her and called her stupid. Then she even hit her daughter in the head. I wasn’t for sure why she was yelling at her daughter. Everyone in my section of the subway train felt uncomfortable because it was hard seeing a mother treat their daughter like that in public. I couldn’t do anything because it’s not my business, and it’s not my right to tell the mother how to raise her daughter. But I felt that it was just inappropriate to scold their daughter in front of many people. The mother should’ve waited till she got home.” Some behaviors of others in public spaces can be sometimes disputable in view of whether their acts are situationally proper or not. From the angle of the initiators (or transgressors), some of their public acts could be recognized as completely permissible or acceptable deeds, not as misbehaviors of a kind. Regardless of their point of view, some of their acts belong to public rudeness because the spectators see such acts as actually invading the personal space of another, or as unacceptable or inappropriate in the general social climate. One respondent, an Asian woman aged 35–49, experienced such a public occasion on the subway train: “I sat on the long seat that already six people occupied. A guy asked me to move aside in order that he can fit on it. I told him that I can’t do so because the seat is only for six people … But he did not listen to me and tried to sit on my legs.” As a similar case, another respondent, an Asian woman aged 18–24, wrote, “I was in a crowded subway, and when it got to a train station, this white, middle aged man and his girlfriend were trying to squeeze themselves to get in and the man decided to push me in with his yelling that I needed to move in more … He not only pushed me very hard, but had an authoritative voice as if all of that was okay.” Thirdly, the victims’ inappropriate reactions for an offensive or unpleasant behavior initially caused by another belong to public rudeness, alike. Thus, some verbal or physical ways they react to someone’s initial intruding behavior targeting them by mistake can be viewed, from the angle of its observers, as breaking the rules of public etiquette that should be

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informally held among most users of the urban public spaces. There was a self-reported case relevant to this type of public rudeness. This happened to one respondent, a white man aged 25–34, on the J train in the afternoon: “I was trying to find a seat because I have some pretty intense back pain issues that involve shooting pain through my legs and back. I saw someone scoot over so that I tried to go there to sit down, but I found myself sitting on this woman. She absolutely was not OK – yelled at me for trying to sit in her lap. I calmly tried to explain what was happening to me, and she was like ‘You are rude, fuck you, etc.’ It was really intense.” Lastly, someone’s ignorance or disregard of newly or existing established rules or social conventions that should be tacitly held in any public gathering place can be also a sort of public rudeness, though it could happen accidentally. Indeed, any violation of it can cause considerable personal disturbance or safety or pose health risk to others. In fact, the New York City Transit Authority (MTA) specified the types of rules of riders’ conduct violations (e.g., smoking, seat obstruction, littering, urination, gambling, drinking alcohol) on the New York City Transit subway system or buses.4 As a case in point, one female respondent witnessed one of its rule violations by another male rider on the morning subway train: “I was on the N train … a man, who was clearly still drunk from the night before, began to publicly urinate on the subway cart that I was in. This man went to around the middle of it, and after turning around, so his back was facing me and the people sitting on my side, and then, he pulled his pants down and did his business. His urine at the time then spread more or less all around the side of the train cart that I was in.” To distinguish public rudeness from public harassment, in this section, various cases of public rudeness were assessed in such forms as bodily movement and space management, the breaking of publicly agreed-upon rules of decorum and etiquette, the victim’s inappropriate reaction for another’s initial unintentional offense, and the complete ignorance of social codes or conventions by another in a same public space.

Public Kindness For urban strangers, their temporary relationships with each other in a public space can sometimes result in their “supportive interchanges” in what Goffman also called these social relationships in public “supportive rituals,” “positive rites,” or “positive interpersonal rituals” (Goffman, 1971, pp.  62–94). One typical sign of these public relationships is

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someone’s “small offerings” to another, such as giving “directions, the time, a match” and as a response, the latter’s expressions of thankfulness to the former (Goffman, 1971, pp. 63–65). Besides, these types of public relationships can happen at times when they are in a relatively close distance to each other or their mutual movements on a street. During this relatively short period of their public encounter, one of them tends to perform the ritual practice of greetings or courtesies, such as “[h]and-­ waving, hat-tipping, and other appeasement gestures,” to another (Goffman, 1971, p. 74). Surprisingly, many of my respondents performed such good behaviors or pleasing bodily gestures to some unacquainted strangers in a same public space. For some of them, upon requests, a general way of support they offered to another was like giving a hand during times when the latter asked a direction, needed a bus ticket or a metro card for a subway train ride, asked to cross the street together, struggled to walk with a couple of heavy bags, and so forth. Even in the absence of a help request directly from another there, some respondents also acted in good faith for their troubling stranger who fell to the ground, attempted to board a bus, was in a car accident, was in danger on the street, or dropped his phone on the tracks. On the other way around, there were some of my respondents who had been the recipients of some strangers’ voluntary good acts, such as “a genuine effort to help stand without falling on the moving train,” “a help in standing up from the floor,” “the offering of water and some words of consolation,” and so on. Here, Goffman excluded “substantive care” in these patterns of supportive relationships among urban strangers in public spaces (Goffman, 1971, p. 66). However, this claim turned out to be untrue based on the occurrence of a public event some of my respondents had experienced in the city. Specifically, at the time, they were identified as one of its performers (or initiators), recipients, or one of its observers: “I fainted in a subway car”; “A guy fell off onto the train track from the subway platform”; “A person was reported to be roaming the tracks”; “He had a heart attack”; “She seemed to have started shaking a lot”; or “I got into a car accident.” Irrespective of whether these supportive relationships among urban strangers proved to be either “small offerings” or unselfish commitments from the eyes of performers, some of these respondents—the recipients or the observers—expressed their words of gratitude, kindness, humanity, or generosity to their performers, and on the other hand, some of them (the performers) emphasized the importance of humanity, benevolence, or

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empathy, for those persons facing any risk or danger beyond the restricted compass of their personal social networks. Indeed, there were almost a hundred respondents who had regarded this broad theme of public kindness as their most memorable experience in their personal history of public life in New York City. By the time a particular public relationship of this kind had happened, they took on the single role of a performer, a recipient, or an observer. Let’s introduce several self-reported cases, within each of which the main position and role of my respondent in the situation of their public relationship with others was identified as a performer of a virtuousness. At first, my respondent, an Asian man, offered an act of good conduct voluntarily to the drunken man who was crossing the road with heavy traffic without any precautions being taken: “One afternoon I was planning to go to the gym. I was about to sit in my car, and that was when I saw a person under the influence (drunk) stumbling and taking a few steps further out on to the road … I saw that he was in imminent danger … I was very nervous because so many cars were just passing by too fast, but he had no clue. I ran to him and grabbed him by his arm and pull him on to the sidewalk. It took a lot of force and power because he was a big guy, but I had to protect that person from getting hit.” The second case of its kind is about a voluntary good conduct of my respondent, a Hispanic woman, who acted out for an elderly woman standing on the street: “There was a terrible snow storm two years ago. It was January, and the weather was terrible … While I was walking through under the subway bridge, I noticed an elderly woman waving her hand for a taxi cab. There were a dozen cabs rushing back from Manhattan, but not one of them stopped for her. I went over to her and tried to hail a cab for her, and still no car would stop for me, either. This woman appeared to be almost 80 years old and alone in that cold. At last, I purchased an Uber for her to get her home back safely, and in the midst of her tears she expressed how thankful she was to me.” As another example for a stranger’s good conduct toward another in one of the city’s public spaces, my respondent, female and white, expressed her warmth and solace voluntarily to a train passenger who got so frustrated because her morning subway train on the ride was not running for a while: “It is not a surprise to anyone when I say that the MTA sucks. On that day, the Q train casually stopped for more than half an hour without any movement. The person who was sitting a bit further from me started to have a panic attack, saying that she would get fired for being late and

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also being worried that ‘we are stuck here and we will die.’ I tried to comfort her and tell her that the trains stop sometimes but always start running again …”. A request for help from someone else in one of the city’s public spaces, rather than voluntary, led to the performance of good conduct among six of my respondents. As an example, my respondent, male and African American, did it for a homeless man on the street: “I got to my stop and everyone was getting out the bus. This homeless guy was walking up to everyone to ask for money, but everyone ignored him. He came up to me and asked me for a dollar. I felt pity on him, so I asked him what he was going to do with the money. He said to me to ‘buy food to eat.’ I decided not to give him money because I could not trust him. Instead, I told him that I would buy him food. Then, we walked together to a McDonald nearby and I bought food for him.” On the flip side, almost two dozen of my respondents were unexpectedly positioned to receive an act of good conduct offered from another who was in the same public space. At first, a self-reported case for it is about the experience of my respondent, female and African American, who was momentarily in a life-threatening situation on the road on her way to work in the morning: “I was late for work, so I got off the train and by the time I tried to cross the street, I did not notice the green light. But something happened to me (I fell down), cars were coming, and I couldn’t wake up. I felt completely lost and I thought I would die soon. Then, someone quickly picked me up and put me out of the street.” It could happen to anyone by dropping some personal items on the street without recognition while having hurriedly taken a walk. My respondent, a white woman aged 35–49, experienced such an occasion later with somebody handing it back to her: “I was walking to the subway following my class at the NYU [New York University] Washington Square. I had just starting a phone conversation via wired Apple earbuds; when I put my phone in my handbag, my NYU ID card fell out, unbeknownst to me. Since it was well after dark and cold, I was hastily walking along. A woman behind me was trying to get my attention, but I intentionally ignored her multiple attempts. Finally, she caught up with me and handed me my ID card! I was so thankful.” As in both self-reported cases above, one of my respondents, a white woman aged 18–24, was also the recipient of a goodwill offered from somebody totally unknown to her: “I was in Central Park and was taking a stroll around the area, and it was a very humid day. I started not feeling

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good, a feeling of something like puking. Then a stranger noticed that I was feeling unwell and decided to help me out. That person was an older lady, and she was very concerned about my well-being. She told me that I should stay out of the sun. And she offered me water and told me that ‘in this weather, it is very crucial that you keep hydrated.’ This public relationship with that lady made my public experience special and reminded me of how diverse New York City is and that there are sometimes good people like her.” Even it could happen to observe someone’s good conduct toward another while having appeared in one of the city’s public spaces. A dozen of my respondents came across with such a public occasion. As a specific case of this kind, my respondent, a Hispanic woman aged 35–49, observed a short but awesome scene of such a public interaction: “It was Mother’s Day afternoon in 2013 … My family and I were walking along Van Cortlandt Park on our way to Riverdale Stables to watch the horses and have a picnic … I stopped my husband in our tracks because something so moving was happening there. We were in light conversation when we saw a well-dressed man carrying a bouquet of flowers. He was approaching a woman sitting on a corner of the ground. The gentleman stopped in front of her and offered a flower. Then, he asked her if she needed anything, wished her a ‘Happy Day,’ and he went on his way. I was so moved that tears welled up in my eyes.” As another self-report case of this similar kind, my respondent, an Asian woman aged 18–24, observed the genuine warmth and cooperation of some train passengers for another who had a seizure: “This happened two years ago when I was taking the train to go to school, and during this ride, a woman sat across from me. This woman was mid-aged and seemed relatively normal to me. However, when the doors of the train were closed, she started shaking a lot. Everyone at first ignored her conducts. A few minutes later, everyone noticed that her shaking was abnormal and her head was banging against the seat railing. When some people went near her to help her, her bodily shaking increased so intensively that she fell on the floor … Someone yelled: ‘She’s having a seizure and we must start to stand away from her so she can breathe.’ This male passenger further took charge to push everyone away and the others were compliant with him. Later when the train reached the next station, many passengers ran out to call the police for her medical help. Finally, the police came to help her for her ambulance ride.”

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Overall, as illustrated in the afore-mentioned self-reported cases of public kindness, some of its respondents displayed a good conduct to take care of their unacquainted but fellow New Yorkers who had been at risk, instead of undertaking the self-centered involvement or the attitude of indifference in front of the former’s urgent situation. Besides, another group of these respondents were fortunately positioned to receive a great support or some assistance from some urban strangers at the very time when they happened to meet themselves an unexpected danger or crisis. By implication, it might be true that many unfamiliar strangers in the New York City public spaces are always ready to help each other there as their personal values and attitudes are indeed imbued with the collective values of care and commitment for anyone at risk.

Public Panhandling Public panhandling, or public begging, is an externally noticeable behavior of a person, known as a panhandler who “publicly and regularly requests money or goods for personal use in a face-to-face manner from unfamiliar others without a readily identifiable or valued consumer product or service in exchange for items received” (Lankenau, 1999, pp. 187–188). Except for the circumstances, such as sitting on the ground or waiting for the voluntary donation of passersby in a cup or a container being set up with or without holding a cardboard sign on one side of the street, public panhandling can be largely treated as a category of public harassment as long as he or she enforces or persuades pedestrians or passengers to contribute money or food by approaching, speaking to, intimidating, threatening, or touching on the latter. Moreover, public panhandling can also be regarded as a realm of public rudeness as this kind of public practice can be seen as an encroachment of “personal space” in Goffman’s term, breaking the informal rules of decorum and etiquette that people should hold in public settings, or as making others in public feel uncomfortable and sometimes feel afraid. While both public harassment and public rudeness are done by diverse groups of people, what is striking here is that public panhandling is often associated with some homeless people (Lankenau, 1999; Lee & Farrell, 2003; O’Flaherty, 1996). In fact, 31 respondents pointed out public panhandling as the theme of their most memorable experience in the history of their public life in the city. However, some of these responses—almost half of them— were unclear in their statements regarding the specific personal identities

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of the panhandlers with whom they were encountered. Here, five self-­ reported cases are illustrated below: two of them relating to common panhandling practices conducted by homeless individuals, one for just the observation of a panhandling situation, and the rest two about the situational relationships between the panhandler(s) and their target patrons. One of the panhandling tactics often used among some homeless people is storytelling through which they speak out about their personal “stories to evoke understanding, pity, or guilt from pedestrians” (Lankenau, 1999, pp. 190–194). If a panhandler presents “an extended narrative to elicit sympathy and a contribution,” that person is “the hard luck storyteller” (Lankenau, 1999, pp.  193–194). For example, one respondent, female and Asian, was once faced with a homeless man on the subway: “As I remained standing, the doors at the far end of the train slammed open and shut. Someone new entered the train cart. At once, I knew exactly what type of rider this person was when he began with the opening lines of ‘I am sorry to disturb your ride, but if you could listen for a few minutes …’ He then went on in a speech that he was unlucky to seek a job so far, he was kicked out of his apartment because of his inability to pay rent, and that any spare change would help. This rider was a homeless man, and it was also physically evident in his torn clothing and his limping throughout the train car. Also, he had a used cup that was labeled with dollar signs … He came to me directly trying to engage in a conversation so that I could hand him some money.” Like storytelling, aggression is another common practice that some panhandlers attempt to solicit for money or food forcibly. The panhandling method of this kind is intended to evoke “guilt and fear in pedestrians by using either real or feigned aggression” (Lankenau, 1999, pp. 194–200). Another respondent, female and Asian, introduced a case of this particular panhandling technique a homeless man used on the train toward her and the other passengers: “I have seen and encountered homeless people on the train before. This is not new to me. They usually make an announcement to the people in a train cart … Then, this man in particular was different because he did not make any public announcements or give any speeches. Instead, he went directly up to and stood in front of each rider in the train cart to ask for money. During these public interactions, he made direct eye contact with each rider, forcing each rider to acknowledge his physical presence … The man eventually approached me … I looked up at him as he asked me for spare change, I kindly told him that I didn’t have any cash on me and that I couldn’t help him. Rather

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than walking away, he stood in front of me for another 5 minutes staring at me … I sat there, frozen, trying to avoid eye contact with him and wishing that this man would just walk away. The man grew angry … He started to scream and curse … The man finally got off the train, at that moment I felt a sense of relief.” Observing panhandling on subways in New York City is not unusual, but it is very rare to watch the situation that a dispute arises between a homeless panhandler and another passenger. My respondent, male and Asian, witnessed such an unusual scene on the subway: “I was commuting home on the 7-subway train, and a homeless man entered my train cart where I was. Since it was around rush hour, the train was very crowded so that there wasn’t much space to move around. He started moving forcibly in it to ask people for money. The riders he interacted with ignored him. Eventually, a male passenger yelled at him and advised him that he should get a job. Both started arguing angrily and the homeless man stated that without going to a traditional job, he could make $88 in three train rides. They continued to call each other names and yell loudly. Eventually, the homeless man left.” Public panhandling of someone is never to be an unfamiliar scene among many regular users of the New York City public spaces, and generally, some of the latter try to avoid a likely encounter with the former. My respondent, a racially unidentified man, described his episode that clarified his reasons to avoid a panhandler that had followed him on his way back home from work: “A teenage girl followed me for an entire block asking for money to purchase food. I told her that I didn’t have money on me. She continued following me until at one point I stopped and glared at her while she mumbled incoherently … I was already trying to bring home groceries after the plastic bags I was using spontaneously broke, so I was in such a bad mood.” Unlike most of the self-reported cases depicted above, my respondent, a white woman, approached a panhandler and his son in order to give them some money while having ridden the subway train: “About a year ago on my way to school on the 6 train, I encountered a beggar on the subway … This young man was actually with his son. His son looked about 3 to 4 years old, malnourished, and in desperate need of a bath and change of clothes. The child was holding on to his father very tightly … I immediately took out my wallet and gave this man whatever I had. As soon as he left the cart, I looked at the woman sitting across from me, and we both looked at each other with tears in our eyes … Although we didn’t

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speak to each other, we both knew that that man was in desperate need of our help, and we both wanted to assist him and his son.” As a whole, a continuing rise of public panhandling can become a social problem as it can be possibly developed into a more serious public issue (e.g., either public harassment or public crime) against the general public who want to keep their everyday urban life routine under their own control.

Public Exhibition Public exhibition is a kind of an attention-grabbing event in a public space, which cannot be included in any of the eight themes. Here, let’s go over some individual cases that pertain to this form of public occasion or matter, that is, public exhibition. A dozen of my respondents stated a street or subway performance as their most memorable experience in their city life. As for their emotional experience to it at the time, three of them were quite positive, such as entertaining, delightful, or impressive; six of them were, to a greater or less degree, negative, such as annoying, uncomfortable, out of place, or offensive; and the last three were ambivalent in their emotions, respectively. For example, my respondent, female and Hispanic, expressed her ambivalent feelings to a subway dancer with whom she was encountered on the R train: “I was heading to school when a subway dancer abruptly grabbed my attention … I was a little uncomfortable because the subway dancer got a little too close to me … The subway dancer performed his rap routine. He seemed excited to share his talent with the riders. I reacted positively then. After his performance ended, I gave a tip to him. I was very intrigued by his energy, positivity, and love for dancing.” Manhattan is one of the five boroughs of New York City where many popular celebrities in those industries of film, music, TV shows, fashion, or arts regularly visit, work, or live lastingly. Therefore, meeting one of those celebrities at one of its public spaces by chance could occur surprisingly to some of its residents, commuters, or visitors one day. As an example, my respondent, a racially unidentified man, ran into a notable fashion designer, Vera Wang, on the uptown 6 train: “She sat and stared at people. She seemed to watch and smile to only those passengers being dressed fashionable or someone wearing all black. I thought that she only preferred attractive people … I also believed that she drew her attention to my fashion style as I was wearing layered colors.”

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For either public safety or public order reasons, New York City has a visible presence of police throughout its mass transit system (e.g., subways, buses), streets, and local neighborhoods over days and nights. Hence, people around these public areas might have unexpectedly observed some police activities. For instance, my respondent, male and Hispanic, stated his observation of three police officers arresting a young man inside the subway train as he felt very shocked and sad at that scene: “A young man was finally arrested by a NYPD cop … The young man was placed on the floor and then 3 cops held him down very tightly. This was disturbing … I understood that the law has to do its job, but they sometimes overreacted … The young man seemed to me that he was visibly in a state of shock and repressed his anger during this tough time.” Public speech by someone on the street, on the subway, or on the bus is another type of public exhibition. For example, my respondent, female and Asian, observed such a scene on the E train headed to Penn Station one afternoon: “On the E train, I was holding onto a pole when an elderly African-American man came on. He was dressed nicely enough, but then he spoke very loud on the train. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we have to be kind to the women in our world. We do not do enough and you men call yourselves gentlemen. Look around! Look at how many of you are seated while women with large backpacks and women with children are standing! Get up! Have you become that careless?’ We all looked around and saw that it was somewhat true … Among most male passengers who sat still with his heads down, there was no one to stand up.”

Public Conversation I define public conversation as any kind of verbal communication between or among urban strangers in a public space. Forty respondents wrote this broader theme of public conversation as their most memorable public experience in their city life. Largely, its initiation began by an urban stranger who unilaterally shouted at, yelled at, or begged for help to some of my respondents or another in a same public space. On top of that, some other respondents in the city’s public spaces were approached by another who asked for directions or locations, or talked to them just out of curiosity, or for some unidentified reasons. At the very time of this public event or stranger encounter, the mutual conversations were usually very brief as my respondents saw their unexpected talks with a stranger (or a handful of strangers) as suspicious, awkward, cautious, uncomfortable, or

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uninteresting. For example, my respondent, female and Asian, was being approached by a woman one afternoon: “I was waiting for the F train on 169th street. A black woman in her 50s wearing a religious ‘I Love Jesus’ t-shirt walked up to me and said that she has heard that God had placed walking angels on the Earth, and that I was one of these walking angels. Then, I conversed with her shortly. But strangely enough, she began singing hymns very loudly and praising the lord by calling him ‘Daddy’ … I felt very uncomfortable during the whole of this public encounter with her.” Another respondent, female and white, stated her experience about a brief communication with a stranger: “At the coffee shop, I was encountered with a stranger around the same age as me who had a foreign accent and seemed unaccustomed to the city. He approached me and asked if I know of a quiet place where he can study … I simply suggested that the New York Public Library is a good place to study specially since it was only a few blocks away. Although the encounter was innocent, I am usually guarded and hesitant to interact with strangers since the dangers are always existing in such stranger interactions.” For some respondents, their mutual conversation with a stranger (or a handful of strangers) in one of the city’s public spaces gradually turned into an open-minded, impassioned, or positive one to each other. As an example, my respondent, an Asian female college student, had a two-hour conversation with an old man she met at Starbucks: “I asked an elderly man if he could watch my bag as I got up to get my drink … He said ‘yes,’ and I continued to look back. When I got back, he was staring at my Chemistry book. We started talking, leading to a two-hour conversation about things like educational reform and his past experiences as a Yale graduate … He was very friendly, expressive as he told me personal details about his life and his daughter and her college journey. He was giving me advice … I was a good listener, attentive and nodding along and giving my own ideas.” As another example that the mutual conversation with a group of strangers was mostly positive, my respondent, male and African American, described his experience of this kind: “My bus was delayed for over 30 minutes because an ambulance was parked on the one-way street … We also could not reverse as the street was too narrow … The driver said, ‘100 dollars for the hero who can move this truck.’ The strangers around me also joked about how they will use their ‘superhero strength’ to move it away. I joked back to the other passengers and suggested that

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we got off the bus and walked to the next bus stop … I was amused by the jokes we all were making.” There were a few other self-reported cases that mutual conversations between the urban strangers were tense or hostile rather than open or friendly. For example, my respondent, female and African American, was positioned to observe an argument between two passengers on the train during the evening rush hour: “A man was arguing on the train with another man. I’m unsure how it began, but they were about to get physical and some passengers took the initiative to calm both parties down.” On the whole, the general attributes of public conversation most of its respondents stressed were insincere in nature, clear in topic, relatively short in length, and much one-sided.

Public Filthiness I define public filthiness as something that people experienced a certain kind of emotions, such as disgust, aversion, or discomfort, which came primarily from their direct observation about, or their follow-up evocation on, a scene of someone’s bodily gesture or conduct very unsuitable in outdoor settings or directly against themselves or another. Nine respondents took it as their most memorable experience in their city life, and six of them were indirectly encountered with a homeless person at the time. For example, one of my respondents, female and white, stated the experience of her wretchedness on the train as she had seen a homeless man take off his clothes with his bottom completely naked and then put his clothes back on in front of many riders. Another respondent, male and African American, stated an eccentric behavior of a homeless man and a rider’s antagonistic reaction against him: I was on the train, and a homeless man was smoking on the train. A passenger who was on the train got very upset at the fact that the homeless guy was smoking while there were many adults and kids on board. He got furious and kindly told the homeless guy to stop smoking. The homeless guy refused, and then, that reaction provoked his burst of anger. He took out a knife from his backpack and threatened to kill the homeless guy. They argued harshly with each other and brought the feeling of fear to most of the passengers on board. Eventually, the homeless guy got off the train and everything came back to normal … It was the most unbelievable moment of my urban life on a subway.

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For some regular users of the New York City public spaces, their encounter with, or their visual notice of, a homeless person led them to feel disgust. One respondent, an Asian woman aged 25–34, experienced this emotional state from several encounters with the same homeless man who used to sit on the sidewalk of a bridge in her neighborhood: “He had many layers of dirty clothes that smelled really bad … The person would sometimes say, ‘have a nice day sweetie,’ but I would generally ignore or say ‘you too’ and walk away as quickly as possible. Some of it was the smell … He sometimes had a bag of piss tied in plastic bags and left it on the side of the road, so when it popped, it smelled really bad for a while.” Overall, one thing that distinguishes urban filthiness from other urban matters, such as urban harassment, crime, racism, rudeness, or panhandling, is that most initiators of the former had no personal motive or intention to harm or hurt other people around the same public space. In fact, their eccentric behaviors causing the feelings of disgust and discomfort to another near them might be their unintended personal habits out of their self-consciousness or self-control, including a way of life nowhere they can find shelter. For each of my respondents, their self-reported account of an unanticipated event, situation, or occasion, which took place in one of the city’s public spaces, could be broadly classified into one of the nine major themes: public harassment, racism, crime, rudeness, kindness, panhandling, exhibition, conversation, and filthiness. In this thematic schematization of various public occasions (the total of 331 cases), of particular importance were the defining issue of their public occasion and their own situational position (e.g., one of its victims or targets, one of its bystanders or initiators) at the time. In fact, a large number of my respondents were situationally placed as either one of its actual victims or one of its potential targets from another completely unknown to them. To put it differently, both factors, from their own point of view, were crucial for classifying their individual public experience in the city into one of the five themes: public harassment, racism, crime, rudeness, or panhandling. Similarly, the personal experience of an urban public occasion from another large group of my respondents, who were in a position to become as one of the bystanders (or onlookers) at the time, could be also classified into one of these same five themes: public harassment, racism, crime, rudeness, or panhandling. Other than that, some of my respondents were

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one of the bystanders during the time of an urban public occasion that was related to either the theme of public exhibition or that of public filthiness. In the meantime, there were a great number of my respondents (96 respondents) who had described the theme of public kindness as their most memorable experience in the history of their city life in public. At the time, they were individually positioned either as just one of the bystanders or one of the persons who played the active role in their relationship with a stranger who was a risk in life. Besides, for dozens of my respondents, carrying out the dual roles of both a speaker and a listener was an important feature of the theme of public conversation. For my respondents, their personal self mobilizes their reflective self that can help to relive their certain, personal real-world experience in the past. From this point on, the following three chapters scrutinize this important topic, namely, the constitution, nature, and situational process of the situated self that was created on their own during the whole time of that public occasion. In particular, Chap. 3 focuses on the first part of the situated self, called The Situated Self in Public I, which comprises their natural evocation of certain personal orientations (personal identity) through their situational positions and their subsequent inner experiences of human perceptions, “nascent consciousness,” and physiological emotions. From the perspective of either the situational victims (or targets) or the bystanders (onlookers or observers), respectively, Chaps. 4 and 5 elaborate on the second part of the situated self, called The Situated Self in Public II, which corresponds to a stream of their situational consciousness (e.g., cognitive monitoring and deliberation) and self-management (e.g., coping behavior) in the wake of their emotional arousal at the time.

Notes 1. As for the definition of robbery, see the official website of Bureau of Justice Statistics: https://bjs.ojp.gov/ 2. See the section of terms and definitions on crime types at the official website of Bureau of Justice Statistics: https://bjs.ojp.gov/ 3. As for the definition of aggravated assault, see the official website of Bureau of Justice Statistics: https://bjs.ojp.gov/ 4. For more information about the types of riders’ conduct violations and fines that the New York City Transit Authority (MTA) specified, see its official website: https://new.mta.info/document/17001

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References Ancheta, A. N. (1998). Race, rights, and the Asian American experience. Rutgers University Press. Gardner, C.  B. (1995). Passing by: Gender and public harassment. University of California Press. Goffman, E. (1971). Relations in public. Allen Lane. Kim, N. (2007). Asian Americans’ experiences of “race” and racism. In H. Vera & J.  E. Feagin (Eds.), Handbook of the sociology of racial and ethnic relations (pp. 131–144). Springer. Lankenau, S. E. (1999). Panhandling repertoires and routines for overcoming the nonperson treatment. Deviant Behavior, 20, 183–206. Lee, B. A., & Farrell, C. R. (2003). Buddy, can you spare a dime? Homelessness, panhandling, and the public. Urban Affairs Review, 38(3), 299–324. O’Flaherty, B. (1996). Making room: The economics of homelessness. Harvard University Press. Quillian, L. (2006). New approaches to understanding racial prejudice and discrimination. Annual Review of Sociology, 32, 299–328. Smith, P., Phillips, T. L., & King, R. D. (2010). Incivility: The rude stranger in everyday life. Cambridge University Press.

CHAPTER 3

The Essence of a Public Experience in New York City: The Situated Self in Public I

The occurrence of an unanticipated event in one of the New York City public spaces would cause both its participants (or its targets) and its bystanders to elicit some indispensable properties of their personal orientations that stand for the core of their own self-concept. As long as their daily appearances in or across its public spaces become routine, on the contrary, the situational inner awakening, or the self-awareness, of their own particular personal orientations would remain dormant. However, the happening of an unanticipated encounter, while out in one of its public spaces, becomes the situational momentum to reckon or signify, in their inner world, some inherent attributes of their personal orientations, whether they were either one of the participants (or its targets) or one of the bystanders at the time. This also means that their situated self is capable of grasping their specific self-existent being. Just as the confrontation or observation of such a public occasion by chance corresponds to the unintended inward emergence of the situated self, so the inner dialogue and outer expressions of their particular personal orientations, which are symptomatic of their real concerns in the face of it, represent some typical forms of the internal state and dynamics of their situated self. Taken together, this is the first part of the situated self, called The Situated Self in Public I, which reflects their natural evocation of certain personal orientations and their self-involvements of human perceptions, “nascent consciousness,” somatosensory sensations, and physiological emotions in the

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situation. To put it in another way, this phase of The Situated Self in Public I is meant to address a phenomenological description of the situated self who was accessing themselves the constituent units, nature, and situational process of the public event, as well as their own and the others’ placements in it. From this point on, the purpose of this chapter is to scrutinize the basic composition, main characteristics, and situational process of the situated self by linking that unexpected public occasion to the temporal, subjective vivacity of their own world that naturally summons up the certain attributes of their personal orientations or that drives themselves the reckoning of such personal traits at a moment of its situational development. This term of personal orientations is emblematic of the unwavering pillar of their self-concept or self-identity. Basically, it is defined as an assortment of self-centered interests, beliefs, morality, and attitudes toward oneself, others, and the world. What’s more, this concept of personal orientations can be broadly understood as the explicit and implicit self-­ configuration of individual idiosyncrasies that stays always true to themselves at whatever situation they are put into place. In this respect, their personal orientations can also be seen as the individual-level epitome of their strong self. On the one hand, the authenticity of personal orientations and its diverse amalgams is what identifies themselves distinctively from others and, on the other hand, is what also makes room for themselves to share some common ground with some of the latter as members of the same larger community or society. In essence, the nature of their personal orientations signifies the synthetic entity of both the private character of the self and the collective nature (or the public character) of the self, both of which are not completely exclusive of each other, of course (Cooley, 1902/1956: 104, 117).1 At first, the private character of the self, known as a large segment of personal orientations, points to their own genuine features and predispositions toward preventing any harm directly to themselves and/or promoting their individual rights, freedom, or welfare. By extension, this conception of the private character of the self can be further applicable to other people who have been already faced with, or are on the brink of, an infringement of their personal rights, safety, or autonomy. Like most other members of a larger community or society, they would hold such thoughts, beliefs, or opinions that the others’ individual rights and welfare should be protected or not to be violated. In fact, this part of personal orientations, known as the private character of the self, corresponds to what Shweder et al. (1997) named “the ethics of autonomy,” which represents the protection of individual’s rights, justice, and

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life (no harm), in addition to other wide-ranging moral vocabularies, such as individual-level well-being, choice, and liberty. Similarly, it also corresponds to what Kohlberg (1981) called “the ethic of justice,” as well as what Haidt and Graham (2007) labeled “harm/care” and “fairness and reciprocity” as two elements of moral domain or judgment. The other broad area of personal orientations is named as the collective nature (or the social character) of the self. It pertains to individual’s identification as a group member, generally as a member of a larger community or society the socio-cultural and political orientations and practices of which are already set to impose or demand its members their compliance with its legal requirements, moral codes, and social conventions mainly directed toward all its other members (Mead, 1934/1962: 253–273). By human socialization, this collective nature of the self, such as members’ duty, responsibility, humanity, generosity, or conformity to social order, is, to a greater or lesser degree, learned and ingrained gradually into their self-concept in the end. That is to say, the collective nature of the self is the other important representation of individual idiosyncrasies that is in close connection with their group membership in a larger community or society. In this light, they tend to be aware of its basic ethical principles and codes of conduct, being ready to perform (or demand) some moral obligations toward (or from) its other members in certain circumstances. For example, in a human community in general, giving care or support to someone in need or in danger can be regarded as one of the important moral beliefs that a great number of its members tacitly accept or comply with, just as friendliness to others can be also considered to be one of important virtues in their interpersonal relationships. Going by the same logic, it also makes sense that they deserve to request its other members in certain situations or at the risk of their own life to sustain these generally agreed-upon social values or to undertake the latter’s sense of obligations for them. By and large, this second part of personal orientations—that is, the collective nature of the self—corresponds to what Shweder et al. (1997) called “the ethics of community” that represents the protection of social members’ duty, the acceptance of social norms and hierarchy, and their mutual interdependence. Besides, it is also similar to what Gilligan (1982) called “the ethic of care,” as well as what Graham et  al. (2009) labeled “ingroup/ loyalty” and “authority/respect” as two elements of moral judgment. Moreover, it is also possible for some individuals in the face of an unexpected public event to experience the inner evocation of certain personal orientations that amount to some aspects of the private character of their

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self at complete odds with the particular qualities of the collective character of their self at the other end of spectrum or the other way around. In defining the term of personality as “individual differences in characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving,”2 this account can be widely applied to several individual personality traits. For example, agreeableness (A), just like conscientiousness (C), neuroticism (N), extraversion (E), and openness to experience (O), is a basic factor (component) of human personality traits (McCrae & Costa, 1987, 1996).3 In case that one of these basic factors of human personality comes to light on the completely opposite sides from the perspective of their personal orientations, both the private character of the self and the collective nature of the self can be actually expressed in some pairs of its contrasting, adjective words: ruthless–soft hearted, rude–courteous, selfish–selfless, uncooperative–helpful, callous–sympathetic, suspicious–trusting, stingy–generous, antagonistic– acquiescent, critical–lenient, narrow-minded–open-minded, disagreeable– agreeable, and proud–humble (McCrae & Costa, 1987, 1996). Obviously, a combined formation of these personality traits can differ from person to person (Allport, 1937; McCrae & Costa, 2008). Like human personality traits, some individual values can also belong to an extreme binary category of their personal orientations—the private character of the self and the collective nature of the self. As another important part of their personal orientations, values are defined as “desirable transsituational goals, varying in importance, that serve as guiding principles in the life of a person or other social entity” (Schwartz, 1992: 4).4 On this ground, there exist the 11 types of human values: self-direction, stimulation, hedonism, achievement, power, security, conformity, tradition, spirituality, benevolence, and universalism (Schwartz, 1992: 5–13). For example, self-direction, as a distinctive component of human values, comprises such private character of the self as freedom, independence, and the free choice of own goals, whereas conformity, as another distinguishing part of human values and on the opposite side of self-direction in meaning, emphasizes such collective nature of the self as obedience, self-discipline, politeness, and honoring of parents and elders. On the whole, individual people are predisposed to absorb these two conflicting aspects of human values in different ways that are mostly contingent on situational contexts. In connecting their deep-seated personal characteristics with the conception of human morality, this notion of their personal orientations seems to be the individual testament of all their moral dispositions and standards,

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as well. According to philosopher David Hume who looked for a root cause of individual moral penchants or judgment—for example, rightness or wrongness, virtue or vice—he stressed the importance of human impression or sentiment over human reason or cognition (Hume, 2009: 696–724). Just as our impression of vice is our own sentiment of uneasiness or unpleasantness, so our impression of virtue is our own sentiment of pleasure or satisfaction (Hume, 2009: 696–724). To Hume, combining personal impression or sentiment with their emotional valence (e.g., pleasure vs. displeasure, happiness vs. sadness) produces the term “moral feelings” (Hume, 2009: 716). Thus, his concept of moral feelings implies that the personal sense of their specific moral dispositions or standards is tightly combined with their own impressions on human actions and their positive or negative emotions to such human actions. Concurrent with this account of Hume’s moral feelings, the phase of The Situated Self in Public I that I emphasize in this chapter is that the natural reckoning of their certain personal orientations (or moral principles) is closely tied to their elicitation of specific kinds of emotions. For example, people can feel anger for violations of their or others’ personal well-being, rights, or liberty (Haidt et al., 1993; Siemer & Reisenzein, 2007; Rozin et al., 1999; Russell & Giner-­ Sorolla, 2013). Likewise, they can also feel contempt or indignation for someone who violated their collective (or group or community) norms and standards (Haidt et  al., 1993; Hutcherson & Gross, 2011; Rozin et al., 1999; Russell & Giner-Sorolla, 2013). Experiencing only a single emotion was not viable for some of my respondents while faced with, or while observing, an unanticipated public event in New York City. Usually, they experienced mixed feelings of uncertainty, confusion, or shock (or surprise) with negative (e.g., fear, anger, discomfort, contempt, disgust, sadness, shame) or positive (e.g., gratitude, comfort, sympathy, impression, pride) emotions at the time (Silva, 2009).5 For my respondents, overall, there exists a common prototype that can eventually come to elicit particular types of their personal orientations in themselves, while faced with, or while observing, an unanticipated event in one of the New York City public spaces. Then, there is a subtle difference between the phase of The Situated Self in Public I and Hume’s logic of “moral feelings” as the former approaches the situational reckoning of their specific personal orientations as something combined with the whole of their situational state—their perceptual attentiveness (e.g., visual perception), “nascent consciousness,” somatosensory sensations, and emotions—that was subjectively experienced for all of its seconds. By the time

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they have been encountered with an unanticipated or problematic event in one of its public spaces, some aspects of their personal orientations would arise automatically in themselves abruptly within this phase of The Situated Self in Public I. Taken together, their natural evocation of such particular personal orientations is the outcome of the multilayered but coordinated amalgamation of their situational perceptions, “nascent consciousness,” somatosensory sensations, and emotions. In this first phase of the situated self, here known as The Situated Self in Public I, human perception is the starting point of evoking or signifying certain aspects of their personal orientations in facing or observing a public occasion in the city because “sense experience is that vital communication with the world” (Merleau-Ponty: 6–36). Above all, the human ability of visual perception really helps themselves sketch the public setting that surrounds them at the time. In some cases, other important human senses like auditory, olfactory, and tactile perceptions would also work together with their visual perception mostly at the early stage of their public event they met by chance. What comes next is their intuitive, quick inspection about what it is about, what’s going on here, and their prompt or intuitive appraisal about it, all of which include its situational matters, causes, the people directly involved in it, and/or their own situational placement. In general, human cognition at this early stage of it, also called the “nascent consciousness” or the “primary appraisal,” is merely an instantaneous awareness or assessment generally devoid of a deliberate evaluation on its defining issue, the persons involved in it, their situational position (e.g., one of the targets or one of the bystanders), and its situational development. Our mental field like this “nascent consciousness” can’t arise without the activity of our perceptual field that makes it possible for us to draw our attention to something by our visual, auditory, olfactory, and/or tactile functions (Merleau-Ponty, 1962: 61). Thus, any kind of consciousness is consciousness of something (Merleau-Ponty, 1962: 6). Likewise, our perceptual attention would spontaneously spur our sensory, somatic, and motor responses (Niedenthal et al., 2005). In the phase of The Situated Self in Public I, their experience of somatosensory sensations would run concurrently with that of the “nascent consciousness” that can serve as another inner conduit to make the bridge between human perception and their elicitation of certain kinds of emotions. Indeed, the unexpected confrontation or observation of a public event in the city, coupled with its “nascent consciousness” (or its “primary appraisal”), would automatically hit their nerve and bodily sensations—for example, muscle

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tension, facial movement (blushing), sweaty palms, lump in throat, a racing heart, or breathing change.6 At this early development stage of their encountered public event, they would be prone to undergo not only their inner world that shifts from “seeing” to “knowing” but also some substantial changes in their body and nerve and physiological functions (MerleauPonty, 1962: 44). Ultimately, the elicitation of certain kinds of emotions belongs to the last stage within the phase of The Situated Self in Public I. In one sense, both perceptual attention and the subsequent bodily or physiological changes in the situation are the antecedents of their arousal of certain kinds of emotions (James, 1910: 373–385). But in another sense, physiological sensation itself is intrinsically interposed with emotional arousal, negative (unpleasant or disagreeable) or positive (pleasant or agreeable)—for example, fear, anger, embarrassment, displeasure, distrust, warmth, deference, delight, or gratitude (James, 1910: 373–385). As for this second point, the synchronized fusion of bodily, kinesthetic, and affective agitations can be dubbed physiological emotions or “the feeling of a bodily state” (James, 1910: 378). With that in mind, my argument here is that during this temporary and personal state still in the face of an unexpected public event in the city, the evocation of their emotions would become ultimately a direct cause for themselves internally to stir up the certain attributes of their personal orientations (e.g., no harm, no threat, care, kindness). Overall, in this phase of The Situated Self in Public I, the natural reckoning of their particular personal orientations arises only in the personal world in the course of their temporal, subjective experience that takes to automatically activate their perceptions, “nascent consciousness,” somatosensory sensations, and emotions, concurrently and in unison. In sum, this chapter attempts to describe the essence (or entity) of an individual experience truly representative of the phase of The Situated Self in Public I that also encompasses the situational reckoning of some of their personal orientations (Robinson & Clore, 2005). To that end, it is especially important to consider the main situational position (or placement) of my subjects—for example, one of the targets (or victims) or one of the bystanders (or onlookers)—who were put in place during the whole time of the public event they ran across in New York City. The main reason is that the self-actualization of their particular personal orientations can be greatly dependent upon their situational placement. Below the sections of this chapter are divided into the three broad domains of personal orientations: (1) human autonomy that represents the private character of the self, (2) human community that stands for the collective nature of the self,

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and (3) human intersectionality connoting a feature of the self that materializes only in a specific combination of human autonomy and human community. Taken together, each section describes some self-reported cases to substantiate the phase of The Situated Self in Public I that includes evidence of how certain attributes of their personal orientations indeed come to light in themselves while faced with—or while observing—an unanticipated event in one of the New York City’s public spaces.

Human Autonomy Human autonomy, as a kind of manifestation for the private nature of one’s self within the wholeness of personal orientations, is characteristic of most humans who care about their own or, in some cases, others’ well-­ being. Especially, this very broad area of human autonomy stresses the individual rights and their own interests in physical, material, or mental (or psychological) well-being in the context of their public life in New York City. This section begins by looking into the issues of why physical well-­ being is central to human autonomy—otherwise, why its indefensible intrusion really corresponds to the breach of individual rights—and what’s more, of how the importance of physical well-being comes to realize suddenly in themselves at the time of their unanticipated openness to other strangers in one of the New York City public spaces. In the latter point, the particular focus is on the self’s instinctive account of physical well-­ being for either themselves or another (e.g., the other victims or the possible targets) as one of the bystanders who was placed in the public setting of a social encounter and who experienced their own cohesive mobilization of human perceptions, “nascent consciousness,” and physiological emotions in its situation. In a public setting as well as in a negative sense, the encroachment of their own physical well-being or safety in degree ranges from an unnatural physical proximity (e.g., staying too close or through too much body movement) to bodily contact (e.g., touching, prodding, or pushing) to mild, moderate, or severe harm caused by slapping, hitting, or the use of a weapon or an object, from one of the unacquainted persons (or a handful of strangers) against them at the time. Besides, my respondents who described this matter of physical well-being as their most memorable experience in their city life in public were either one of the victims (or one of the potential targets) or one of the bystanders typically in accordance with one of the five major themes: public harassment, rudeness, panhandling, crime, and exhibition.

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The fact that a startling and intentional physical closeness by an unacquainted person in a public space can pose a looming danger to personal safety or life, which is regarded as an important element of human autonomy in personal orientations, was expressed by some of my respondents. As one of these self-reported cases, for example, there was an incident conspicuously described by my respondent, an Asian woman aged 18–24. As for her ultimate situational reckoning for her vulnerability to physical attack by a homeless man on the subway train, she wrote, “I was afraid that the homeless man was going to hurt me.” Then, this imminent risk of her physical safety arose abruptly in herself through her self-detection of various situational cues that resulted in her strong emotions, that is, the feelings of uncertainty and fear. Ahead of her stranger encounter, she was placed in the following setting: “It was the evening of a chilly day, and I was on my way home after a long day at school. It was about 7:30 p.m. I had just gotten on the B train after transferring from the 6 train at Broadway-Lafayette. It was crowded as usual.” Then while riding the subway, her observations of “a man in his late 50s or early 60s” not too far away from her seating place and of his bizarre behaviors such as “stand in front of each of the riders for a little while and make direct eye contact with them” started causing her some concern. What’s worse, she was finally trapped in his aggressive conduct of panhandling: “The man eventually approached me … I looked up at him as he asked me for spare change. I kindly told him that I didn’t have any cash on me … Instead of walking away, he stood in front of me for another 5 minutes staring at me.” To her, this long silent period of his unjustified standing with a cold expression on his face also became the inner time of arousing the feeling of fear with some physiological sensations: “At this point, I felt my measles tense up and I was scared. I didn’t know what to do as I sat there frozen … The emotional state that I experienced was fear.” In a word, the sudden awakening of her physical safety came in her with and through her situational perceptions, “nascent consciousness,” and the mixture of her physiological sensations and emotional arousal at the time. As in the afore-mentioned public context of an unknown person’s unnatural or purposively physical contiguity to one of my respondents and another in the same public space, certain types of unintentional or intentional physical contacts—for example, pushing, touching, slapping, or hitting—can also come to be as a factor damaging—and awakening—the individual rights or dignity of their own or another there. One of my respondents, another Asian woman aged 18–24, introduced her public

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experience that is relevant to this point. What is something unusual in this case was her situational position from which a series of her own mishaps made herself a menace to someone’s physical well-being before the occurrence of the problematic public event, though not very severely. The opening setting of the situational event that she had been directly involved in was: “This happened early in the morning at around 7:20  a.m. on a weekday while I was on the C train … It was a crowded train, so I was unable to hold onto one of the poles because I had been pushed all the way towards the doors of the train.” On this packed train, her bodily mishandling became a catalyst that drove her mistakenly away to touch the body of a rider who was perceived as a young, black man upon her quick visual inspection: “I had nothing to hold onto. My hand, instead, grasped a man’s bald head and then my hand ended up pulling at his ear, for balance.” As the male rider had no immediate reaction to her accidental misbehaviors, the situational encounter stayed undeveloped. Then, what made this public situation problematic came up with the recurrence of her misbehaviors against the same rider one more time: “However, at the next stop, I again repeated this by accident.” As expected, there came her spontaneous appraisals (or “nascent consciousness”) on any noticeable expressions of the rider: “[H]e was clearly annoyed, but he did not voice anything. His facial expressions made it clear he was angry.” Looking at that male rider’s facial expressions quickly, she also felt herself the sense of embarrassment. For two reasons, she stated the origin of such an emotional state in herself: “I felt extreme embarrassment because I had repeated a mistake twice and caused harm to another human being.” One way to keep protecting our physical well-being is to take ourselves away from any circumstances that are seemingly unsafe or in danger. Despite such individual efforts, some of us could come to realize their inexorable vulnerability in a public situation soon after it had ended. It is the case that had been experienced by my respondent, a racially unidentified woman aged 18–24. According to her own account, her situational context was: “As I was closing up at work, someone came in … He looked around the place, trying to avoid the front door. His eyes were moving around. He was sweating and out of breath … After coming out of the bathroom, I asked him to leave since we’re closed and he did.” In this short period of time to close the store, she encountered another odd situation: “In a few minutes I saw a lot of police officers outdoors.” Because of her uncertainty of what happened there and her unexpected encounter with a stranger just a short while ago, she then decided to approach them:

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“I went to speak with them because I thought it might have to do with that person.” What she had heard from one of the police officers there was, “[H]e stabbed someone and ran away, and they were looking for him.” Not only with this dreadful news but also with the prompt reflection of her unguarded encounter with that stranger a few minutes ago, her affective experience at that moment was the feeling of fear suddenly flowing around her entire body. In some cases, even the bystanders (or the onlookers) in a public crime scene were never free from the concern of their own physical safety. As a case in point, one respondent, a Hispanic woman aged 18–24, was situated as a direct witness to a horrific crime scene, which caused her early calmness to turn into stark terror due to her sense of defenseless exposure to it. Before the advent of such a situational event, she was on the 7-­subway train heading toward Manhattan late in the evening. While talking to her cousin on the phone, by chance she caught sight of a crime scene in progress outside the doors of her train when it shortly made a stop in a station for new passengers: “I looked over and saw the two men fighting on its floor. Another thing I saw from one of them was holding a gun. At that same moment, he fired what sounded like 6 shots.” Her intuition that something was terribly wrong, after multiple gunshots had been fired, was somewhat assured with her spontaneous situational awareness: “Everyone on the train is running, crying, and panicking … I saw the dead body on the floor.” The explosion of gunshots also made her instinctively start “running while still on the phone with my cousin.” After all, her grave concern about her physical well-being was well reflected in the following statement of her dominant emotional state at the time: “I got so much scared that I was going to get shot. I was so sad that I was on this train alone, and if I died I was dying alone.” From some of my respondents’ perspective, one of the New York City public spaces was where a real danger to their or the others’ physical well-­ being had been in connection with the risk or damage of their or the others’ material well-being, or at the brink of its loss, to a greater or lesser degree. In most of these types of public occasions, physical threat or attack from a stranger (or a small group of strangers) came first and the matter or loss of material well-being second. As an example, my respondent, a racially unidentified woman aged 25–34, was the actual victim of a crime incident that had happened on the street. Prior to its occurrence, her situational setting was: “I was walking home from work around 1 a.m. in the morning, listening to some music.” Before long, a stream of her visual

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attention was directed toward a car and someone coming out from it and walking toward her: “A car pulled up in front of me. I saw a guy come out of the car and start walking close to me, but still I didn’t care too much about it.” Then, her further instant situational appraisals (or “nascent consciousness”) were quite alarming to her: “He got closer, and I noticed that he had a bandana around his face.” What she had been trapped in soon was: “He cornered me against the building and held the knife to my ribs and told me to give him all my money.” At that specific moment in time, with the feeling of fear, she also went through certain physiological symptoms in her: “I felt my knees get weak and my heart start beating really fast.” Luckily, this problematic situation ended without harming her physically as the offender ran away with her ID and debit card taken. Another similar case that has to do with the matter of both of one’s physical and material well-being was informed by one respondent, an African-American woman aged 45–49. The situational background surrounding her before her public encounter was: “I was coming home from school. And I was exiting the subway station on Eastern Parkway station.” The serious matter that happened soon after her exit from the subway train was: “I was being faced with a gun point by a completely strange man.” Her inescapable encounter lasted for a little while with his continued aggressive conducts: “He ripped off my necklace and demanded that I should hand over to him any other jewelry that I was wearing. He also demanded money.” This totally unexpected threat from a stranger was emotionally expressed like “I was very scared.” Despite that emotional state, she reacted to his demands as calm as she could: “I convinced him that I was just a high schooler and all I had was a few singles. I opened the zipper on my bag where the singles were.” Eventually, this public occasion was safely over to her as the attacker ran off with all her singles taken. However, in the self-reported cases from a few of my respondents, a physical threat or attack from a stranger came in the midst of the concern of their material well-being. For example, there was an unexpected public event that one respondent, a racially unidentified woman aged 50–64, had experienced. The incident happened on the street in broad daylight in the mid-1970s when she was only 15 years old: “I had just come out of the West 4th street subway, and I had walked down West 3rd street toward MacDougal street. I was walking peacefully with my shoulder bag strap on my right shoulder.” The moment she entered into that problematic situation, what she had faced was: “Suddenly I felt my shoulder bag being pulled backward. A man had grabbed my shoulder bag and was pulling it

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backward.” To get a quick sense of what was happening, what she had done first was: “I snapped around to see him.” After the short moment of his aggressive mugging, her emotional state was: “I was furious.” Next, her rage instinctively carried her retaliation against him: “I had my umbrella and I struck the man with my umbrella.” In response, he also undertook an act of counter-retaliation against her: “He slapped me in the face and called me a bitch.” She expressed that moment of his physical attack as “incredulous.” Soon, this troubling incident to her ended with no physical injury for her as he quickly ran away. Under this broad subject of human autonomy, the matter of physical well-being is, in some other cases, also conflated with that of mental or psychological well-being (e.g., individual rights, privacy, dignity, independence, or freedom) for those already victimized, or for those in danger of being victimized, upon the malicious acts of an unacquainted person (or a group of strangers) in one of the city’s public spaces. Sexual harassment targeting women in its public spaces is a distinctive marker where the former intersects with the latter. For instance, such an incident of sexual harassment, which had happened in one of the New York City public spaces, was described by my respondent, a Hispanic woman aged 18–24. That incident happened while she had been taking a subway train. Before its occurrence, her public setting was: “My softball team and I had to take the two subway trains to get to the softball game. The first one was the F and then, the 6 train to our stop. Due to the crowdedness in the train station and on the 6 train, I got soon separated from my teammates and coaches.” In this situational context, what she had gone through was indeed astonishing: “I was touched inappropriately by a person who was standing directly behind me facing my back.” Despite her strong feeling of confusion, she assumed this body contact as inadvertently happening: “I felt confused because I thought it was an accident and maybe the train car caused.” She later became surely aware that someone’s touch on her body had not been unintentional at all: “The stranger on the train kept cupping and feeling my butt because I was in my softball uniform. He thought I wouldn’t notice due to it being a crowded train.” She described the upturn of another emotion inside her at the time in the following way: “After a few seconds it turned into anger because I realized he was doing it deliberately.” At last, her situational encounter from that sexual harasser ended as she got off immediately at the next stop. A similar case relating to an unescapable target of sexual harassment in public was expressed by another respondent, an African-American woman

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aged 18–24. The situational setting before its happening was: “It was on a downtown bound 4 express train approaching 14th street. I was standing close to the door, and the train was a little crowded. Meanwhile, there was a much larger man standing behind me.” On the train, the problem that she had met all of a sudden was: “he had touched my butt.” Regarding his slight touch on a part of her body, her initial assessment was that the touch was not intentional: “I thought nothing of it at first because I blamed it for the crowded train.” Then, there came a strong reason to be suspicious of his behaviors: “I shifted a little more away from him the best I could on the train, but I still felt him grabbing my butt.” She described her prevailing emotions at the time as “a state of shock and scared a little bit.” Then, her instantaneous reaction was her attempt to grasp what had been going on there: “When I turned slightly to get a glimpse of his face, I saw him looking at me along with his facial expressions like he never did anything wrong.” This problematic encounter continued until both had gotten off the train at the same stop coincidentally. This continuity of their unspoken engagement further made her feel very worried: “I was so afraid that he was going to follow me.” However, her concerns abated after she had seen him disappear eventually in the big crowd. Even in a public setting where many unacquainted people are haphazardly gathered densely together for some time, the preservation of our own or someone’s mental or psychological well-being, which is generally identified as individual rights, privacy, dignity, or freedom, is never a trivial matter at all. Below are the two specific cases that resonate with this issue, to some extent. At first, making a negative comment to an unknown person in a public space is definitely an inappropriate conduct enough to violate the privacy or dignity of that person being targeted. My respondent, an Asian woman aged 18–24, became an unwanted target from a group of teenagers on a bus. Her situational circumstance was: “I was standing in the bus to go to school, and a group of girls were already sitting down.” The reason why their public setting had become problematic soon was: “One girl said that my scarf doesn’t look good with the outfit.” She further described how she had felt herself at that moment: “I felt discomfort and frustration in the wake of my reality that I was not able to choose what I wanted to wear in this free country.” Despite these inner instant thought and feelings, she further tried to recognize her situational placement: “I ignored them because I was alone and they were a group. I didn’t say anything.” Since a group of girls had made no further comments directly toward her, the sheer awfulness of her indirect encounter with them ended in silence before she got off the bus first.

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Likewise, an infraction of individual rights or privacy in a public space can come out because of a violation of physical space (or social distance) from other riders on public transport or from some pedestrians on the street. This can particularly be a great concern for the persons affected in it (e.g., a subway train, bus, or a sidewalk) that is specially a spatial region meant to maintain enough personal space to one another. A self-reported case that is suitable for this matter in such a public setting was reported by my respondent, an African-American woman aged 25–34. Before the occurrence of the public encounter, she was on a subway train taken at the 34th street station, sitting spatially with not many riders on it. This calm situation became problematic for her due to an indiscreet conduct of a woman sitting next to her: “The lady came in with a suitcase, sat next to me, and then placed it right on my feet.” Without delay, she attempted to resolve her feeling of discomfort: “I told her to move it a little … she insisted that she have to get off in the train once it stops … she was saying as if that is not her problem, so I pushed the suitcase away from me.” Not surprisingly, her feeling of anger was further evoked by such a ruthless reaction from that woman. She also stated how their situational encounter had ended: “I put my headphones on. Although she kept talking to me in an angry tone, but I surely did not care.” Put it all together, some self-reported cases that touched on any matter of human autonomy, as illustrated above, make clear that human autonomy could be very vulnerable or easily invaded at any time in a public setting from the angle of one’s physical, material, or mental (or psychological) well-being. In other words, for these victims (or the bystanders in some cases), the infraction of human autonomy was the situational time for themselves to reckon their certain personal orientations. In other words, at the very moment when a public situation became problematic, certain kinds of human autonomy—no harm, no threat, privacy, dignity, or freedom—suddenly crossed one of its victim’s mind or one of its bystander’s. Indeed, for their own part, this inner reaction comes throughout the synchronized working of their perceptions, “nascent consciousness,” and physiological emotions in the situation.

Human Community The collective nature of the self, also known as human community, is the other domain of their personal orientations. The collective nature of the individual self epitomizes their own subjective world on a larger human

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society, namely, a wide range of personal thoughts and practices about the real or imagined community they belong to or identify themselves, as well as about the majority of its other members. Indeed, it is their own communal-­level beliefs, norms, and attitudes that lurk deeply in their inner world, and their own communal-level mores that habitually act out as long as their public life has kept on going as normal without any disruption. As for their personal life, it has been gradually cultivated inside their own world on the basis of their self-identified membership to that human society, real or imagined. In the backdrop of urban public spaces, there exist three different sources for themselves to have a chance to reckon their sense of collective identity or membership accidentally. To put it in brief, first of all, the reckoning of their particular personal orientations that pertain to their group membership into a human society came in themselves as either one of the victims or one of the bystanders at an unanticipated public occasion during which someone else there was in violation of formal or written rules (e.g., laws, statutes, ordinances, codes of conduct) at the national, state, or municipal level. Second, a sudden reckoning of their group or community values or identity in the face of an unanticipated event in public can arise from someone’s compliance with, or otherwise, someone’s violation of one of their conventionally accepted social norms, traditions, or basic etiquettes or manners. Third, it can also materialize at the time of their situational experience that prompted their sense of mutual trust or ties with others or not, that had their mutual cooperation with them or not, or that helped develop their sense of community or not. To begin with, each of the four self-reported cases below spells out how someone’s violation of formal rules under the jurisdiction of state or local governments—here, the governments of the State of New York and New York City and their affiliated agencies—is closely linked to the situational awakening of their collective membership. As a first example about this nexus, it is unlawful for someone unlicensed to sell any amount of marijuana to others within the jurisdiction of New  York State, according to New York State laws.7 Even selling less than 2 grams of marijuana receives a substantial penalty of up to three months of imprisonment with a fine not to exceed $500.8 Unexpectedly, one respondent, an Asian man, was situated to catch sight of a rider’s sale of marijuana on the subway train. Prior to this totally unanticipated observation, his situational setting was: “I was going to school on the F train around 6 p.m. on a weekend in November 2019. I was sitting down just minding my own business when this stranger got on the train.” What made this situational setting turning

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problematic started with that stranger’s public announcement: “He advertised what he had for sale … However, this wasn’t a regular candy sale or mixtape sale. He was actually selling marijuana.” Despite his feeling of astonishment at that man’s weird speech, he continued observing all of the latter’s conducts, acknowledging his spatial proximity from that person: “He was asking all the passengers on the train if they would want to purchase it any amount in a loud and alarming matter … I was sitting right next to him while this was all happening.” During the whole time of that public occasion, he felt two never-ending emotions: “During this encounter, I felt very shocked and anxious.” Finally, he further described his reason for such unstable emotions at the time: “People dance on the train, ask for money, sell candy, cookies, etc. But I have never in my life encountered anyone asking people to buy weed on the subway train.” For all the riders for the New York City Transit subway system or buses, they should abide by a set of written rules and regulations in using these public transportations, according to the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA).9 For instance, there is a ban on urination on the subway and a $100 fine will be imposed once its violators are caught.10 One respondent, an Asian woman aged 18–24, witnessed such an unexpected scene on her way to go to school on the N train on a weekday morning. When the train had passed over the Manhattan Bridge, she kept an eye on the movement and behaviors of a male rider on it: “This man went to the middle of the train, turned his body around so that his back was facing me, and then, he pulled his pants down.” A sort of awkward feelings arose in her at the time. Moreover, she detailed the subsequent misconduct of this male rider: “He began to publicly urinate on the subway cart… His urine at the time then flowed down along the side of the train that I was in.” While watching over this unbelievable act of that strange man and the path of his urination steadily flowing toward her, she also felt discomfort and disgust for some obvious reasons: “I felt discomfort as it was literally 8 a.m. in the morning, and as this is how my day began. His urine also began to trickle towards my side, leaving me to ride the rest of the ride with my feet up … I was disgusted as there was a clear pungent smell.” The NYCTA also has a clear set of written rules and regulations to penalize any unauthorized persons entering into one of its properties or areas that are only allowed to access by authorized personnel.11 For example, the general public shouldn’t enter or walk through subway tracks which could not only cause the obstruction of subway traffic, but put their own and other riders’ lives in danger in an extreme circumstance.12 Such a

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public occasion, which had ultimately led to a very serious delay to her scheduled trip to school, was described by one respondent, a racially unidentified woman aged 18–24. On a spring morning in 2018, she was on a Manhattan-bound train, and the train had stopped running at a subway station for a long time. In this highly uncertain circumstance, the general atmosphere of some passengers was portrayed in the following way: “They were just asking each other about whether they knew if the train was moving, what was happening, and what they were supposed to do to get to work or school.” Much later on, she and some riders came to learn why the subway had to stop moving: “For a person was reported to be roaming on the tracks.” As might be expected, the feeling of anger overwhelmed her during this entire period of her train on halt: “I was feeling anger. I was running late to an important class and did not have any time for this unannounced delay. This situation could have been avoided.” Since March 2020, New York City established social distancing rules to impose the maximum fine of up to $1000 for anyone who was found violating at least 6 feet from other people in its public spaces.13 This new strict measure was one of the city’s desperate efforts to contain the citywide spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic that poses great threat to human health. For instance, this matter of human health, coupled with social distancing, was treated as the most memorable public experience in the city life for my respondent, a racially unidentified woman aged 18–24. One day in late May 2020, she was with one of her friends on the 14th street outside of her apartment in Manhattan to load some stuffs into her car. At the time, there was another situational setting: “There were many homeless and druggies on the street.” She described how such a normal situation suddenly shifted into a problematic one: “When my friend and I were loading some items in the car, a man, while keeping painting his nails blue, approached us and asked if we liked his nails.” This stranger interaction made her very uncomfortable, and she kept an eye on him as he loitered around her car: “He proceeded to walk from the sidewalk towards us and leaned against the trunk of the car, keeping painting his nails and saying something to us. I also noticed that he had a hospital bracelet on.” She further explained why she had felt uncomfortable and scared during the entire time of her encounter from him: “He was not 6 feet away from us … I didn’t necessarily think he was going to hurt me, but he was way too close to me.” In the setting of the city’s public spaces, the second approach to human community involves how its members comply well with a broad range of

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its normative codes, social conventions, and behavioral standards. This is what Goffman (1963: 8) generally called “public order,” identified as a comprehensive scope of social norms regulating any inappropriate conduct of some members in their immediate co-presence in public. A kind of transgression on one of these public interpersonal rituals corresponds to the invasion of someone’s privacy. When somebody in a public space becomes an “improper open person” like an exhibitionist, some people there are likely to be at risk of the breach of their privacy (Goffman, 1963: 143–144). As a case in point, one respondent, a Hispanic woman aged 18–24, experienced this sort of privacy encroachment on the subway train. One day, she was on the train that was very crowded during the afternoon rush hour. The person with whom she was encountered there was a pole dancer: “That person disrupted everyone as he held one of its poles and used his full body for his performance.” To her, his performance on the subway also became the emotion-eliciting event: “I felt fear and discomfort on my commute home especially on the train.” Besides, she described her basis of these feelings for two reasons: “I was very concerned about getting hit … As I usually become used to listen to music on my daily commute, it also bothered me really a lot.” When individuals wanted to know the time of day, directions, or made their accidental body contacts with others in public space, individuals would inevitably become “opening persons” who have a right to lay themselves open to others (Goffman, 1963: 125–144). Other than these kinds of unavoidable situations, opening up themselves to unfamiliar others in a same public space, such as on the subway or on the bus, can easily violate the public courtesy of “civil inattention” for the latter who would be often directed to be self-absorbed there for their own reasons (Goffman, 1963: 84–88). In turn, the exposure of an unanticipated conduct or a bizarre behavior by another in a public space could make it hard for the others in the same public space to withdraw their attention from the former. For example, my respondent, a white woman aged 18–24, unintentionally witnessed such a case on the running subway. While she had been on the A train one night, she saw a mother and her son get onto it. Soon, the fixity of her gaze was toward the situational matter that had arisen between them: “The mother screamed at her son. Then she struck her son in the shoulder.” When it comes to the subject of her emotional state, the feelings of anger and discomposure were what she had experienced at that moment. In fact, her emotional arousal was rooted in her social norms

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about what we should avoid as riders in such a public gathering place as a subway: “It wasn’t the right place to scold and hit her son in front of other people.” As for social conventions of a human community at large, tacit but positive rituals—for example, a man holding the door for an unacquainted woman or offering her a seat, any passerby picking up the dropped personal belongings of another pedestrian, or passing greetings by each other—are still being performed among a larger group of urban strangers for members of another population group (e.g., women, children, the old, or the disabled) or between them (Goffman, 1971: 62–94). One respondent, an Asian woman aged 18–24, witnessed that this was not always the case. Around 11 a.m. one day a year ago, she was riding the subway. While standing beside the door in the middle of one of its compartments, the situational event that had happened drew her attention: “A black man at the age of 40 to 45 saw a spot of empty seats and tried to sit, but two old Chinese couple sat there first … That man was using abusive language to them, and he continued until they got off the train.” On her own side at the time, she felt anger and a great shock. She further described her basis of such emotional arousal: “I felt anger as the man didn’t express any respect to those old people … I also felt shock because nobody there spoke against the man constantly yelling and cursing at them.” On the contrary, in some public occasions, a number of urban strangers were really willing to display their sincere and substantial support to another who was already put in trouble or in danger there, particularly those people needing care or services, further than their sheer acts of light-­ level positive rituals. For example, my respondent, an African-American man aged 18–24, described his situational encounter while walking to school one day: “A blind man had fallen on the floor on the sidewalk.” Without any hesitation, he and a handful of other pedestrians near it took immediate actions separately but spontaneously: “We all rushed to help him, whilst gesturing to each other which parts we should be responsible for (e.g., his walking stick, his backpack).” Despite his initial feeling of shock at the very moment when the blind man had fallen over on the sidewalk, that time of helping him with those unknown people also generated his feeling of pride: “I felt a huge sense of pride because many New Yorkers took time out of their day to help this man.” The third and last approach to human community, which is closely associated with its second one mentioned above, emphasizes two conflicting modes of situational-based human relationships that emerged among

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some unacquainted people. On the one hand, a distinctive mode of such a human relationship is the realization of “a situational-based, temporal sense of belonging or bonding” which relates to mutual openness, cooperation, or support among a group of unacquainted people fortuitously gathered in one of the city’s public spaces. While temporarily interacting with one another there, these situational relationships can further engender themselves a sense of companionship, trust, or gratitude, as well. Below are two specific self-reported cases that support this line of thought. At first, this kind of personal experience was introduced by one respondent, a Hispanic man who entered into the situational setting: “I was on my way home from work on the J train during the blizzard in NYC areas in 2006.” On the subway, the unanticipated problem he had encountered was: “The problem began as the train ascended from underground to the above-ground tracks. Once above ground, the train doors were getting stuck open due to the freezing temperatures and ice on its doors.” With his continued alertness to the train operation, he also checked the general atmosphere of all the people around him: “During the first couple of stops, the conductor and a few door operators had to walk through each of its carts and manually shut the doors, which of course delayed the train.” At the same time, his biggest worry was whether he and everyone else on the train could go home safely without too much delay. What had happened next was his and some passengers’ concerted effort to manage this matter: “As the train continued staying on the track, several passengers in each of its carts manually shut the doors for the train conductor and operators … All those who were assisting were communicating verbally and through body language … We were all able to work together successfully.” During this period of their voluntary collaboration, there came to develop a sense of bonding among them: “I felt a sense of pride in the stewardship exhibited by many strangers on a train.” Moreover, his heart was also filled warmly with the sense of gratefulness to his other co-­ riders: “People of all races and gender assisted each other that night, and I was very grateful to be a part of that experience.” As another similar example, my respondent, an African-American woman aged 25–34, revealed her experience about how she had felt a sense of friendliness with a group of strangers at a bar. Before she was unexpectedly exposed to this public occasion, her situational setting was: “I was sitting in a bar in Soho on my birthday in January … I was observing my surroundings, and I saw a group of people talking.” Then, her situational encounter began to arise as one of them had asked her courteously

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to join them. At such a moment, she felt a sense of surprise: “I was actually very surprised. Never did I realize that there were still nice New Yorkers left.” She also mentioned the pleasant ambience of their social gathering: “The strangers asked me some questions, brought me drinks at the bar, and at the end of our chats, I got an invitation to a Nets basketball game.” While drinking and chatting in amity with them, she also felt a range of other emotions: “The group made me feel very comfortable and happy.” The opposite side of “a situational-based, temporal sense of belonging or bonding” in the settings of public spaces is “a situational disunity” or “the loss of a situational community” that is mainly attributed to the revelation of someone’s ingroup identity or attachment against those members of their alleged out-group. Expressions or acts of unilateral or bilateral antagonism or confrontation reflect a situational disunity or the feeling of otherness to some people in the same public space, though temporarily. Unfortunately, this personal experience of unease or disillusionment might leave the individual members of its targeted group an unforgettable wound in their heart as well as in their social life, such as a deep and constant sense of alienation or marginalization in the community or the society to which they themselves belong. This holds true for any cases of public racism. For example, one respondent, a racially unidentified woman aged 18–24, posted her personal experience of such a case. Before the revelation of this problematic occasion, walking to a fast-food restaurant with her family was her situational setting: “One day, we were just enjoying family time with the cousins and enjoying the weather in Brooklyn … My family and I were walking to Popeyes to eat out.” As they walked along in the vicinity of it, she kept watching a man and his family walking straightly toward them and finally passing forcefully through even in the middle of them. Then, the situational problem erupted as that unacquainted man had expressed a highly offensive racial slur directed against them suddenly: “He shouted at us by telling us to go back to our country.” Even his fierce verbal assault against her and her family was unceasing: “Many times his spouse told him to keep moving and to leave them alone, but he didn’t stop yelling at us.” Indeed, this whole situation made her feel anger, discomfort, and made her sadness run very high: “I was filled with anger and discomfort. I also felt extremely sad.” There were her personal grounds for the arousal of these multiple feelings: “I, along with my family, were born and raised in America. This is our home just as much as his. It was shocking to know that people still thought us in such a biased way. It was even more shocking because he was an African American and a racial minority like us.”

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As another example about the loss of collective community or bonding, one respondent, an African-American woman aged 18–24, came to observe a physical fight between two men inside the store, expressing her opinion that the citywide diffusion of pandemic coronavirus (COVID-19) might have been the definite cause of such a situational skirmish between them. Late in the afternoon in mid-March 2020, she was working as a cashier in a store before these two male customers came into conflict with each other. What had made this normal situation take a problematic turn at last began with a severe bout of coughing and sneezing by one of them who stood physically close to the other. She further detailed the escalation of their public encounter: “One of the men grew increasingly agitated as the other provoked him by attempting to touch him after being confronted about coughing too close to him … The stranger seemed to be pretty aggressively building up to the resulting knock out … The other person who got knocked out seemed pretty upset, but still attempted to cause a scene to break out another fight.” During the entire time of this disruptive situation, she kept watching over them with the constant feeling of shock: “Feeling a shock was my reaction due to the fact that I had never experienced or witnessed something that happened a few feet away from me.” Eventually, as soon as its manager had called the police, this situational occasion ended with their immediate departure hurriedly out of the store. In sum, to each of my respondents whose self-reported cases were generally focused on this broad theme of human community, their real time of the situational event that had happened in one of the city’s public spaces also became an instantaneous moment to elicit themselves the specific cores of their personal orientations in what they identify themselves as a member of a human society—for example, a person living, working, or studying in the whole American society or one of its large communities like New York City. During this real time of their public occasion, their certain personal orientations arose in themselves on the ground of this simultaneous and integrated mobilizing time of their perceptual sense system, “nascent consciousness” (a very low-level cognitive function or “primary appraisal”), physiological sensations, and emotional elicitation. To a greater or less degree, a member of any society acknowledges the importance or necessity of their compliance with its formal rules and regulations. Likewise, many members of any society try to abide by the wide range of its moral or normative codes, social conventions, and behavioral standards even in public spaces where unfamiliar people gather together by chance.

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Besides, some unacquainted members are also willing to collaborate with each other or to become friends sometimes even in a fortuitous public setting. In general, these sorts of personal orientations represent the collective nature of their personal self.

Human Intersectionality To many of my respondents, their personal experience of an unanticipated public event, or an unusual public interaction with strangers, in New York City became the true moment of simultaneously reckoning some conflicting attributes of both the private and the collective character of their personal self, also known as some qualities of their personal orientations. While faced with it or while observing it, indeed, they raised concerns, or otherwise gave themselves some reassurance, about some aspects of their personal orientations, which reflect the combined features of their own human autonomy and human community. In this light, for instance, its situational circumstance could happen to drive some individuals themselves to elicit a matter of their personal well-being in human autonomy together with a timely reminder of their attitudes to human community like their collective identity or their group membership to it. Here, five self-reported cases that are relevant to this section of human intersectionality, which combines human autonomy with human community, are considered in more detail below. To begin with, one respondent, a Hispanic man aged 25–35, experienced the public occasion that triggered his concerns about both the welfare of a disabled man and the declining communal culture of respect for those people needing protection in the society. He described his situational setting: “One afternoon in spring a few years back, I was on my way home from a friend’s house out on Long Island. I was in the Jamaica LIRR [The Long Island Rail Road] station.” Inside it, he happened to watch over what a blind man had been situated from a group of three young men: “There was a man with a white cane who kept asking people for help to get to the subway because he was blind. Then, a group of three young men who I estimated to be between 18 to 25 years old gave this man some direction.” Soon he intuited that they had given the wrong direction to him: “The blind man thanked them and walked in the wrong direction into the end of the platform.” With his feeling of pity toward that person at that moment, his instant observation of those young men’s facial expressions also prompted his feelings of anger and shock in him: “These young men laughed at this man’s pains. And I was shocked that

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people could be so rude and heartless.” Moreover, he also expressed his feeling of pride after helping that blind man: “I was happy to have been there at the exact time that this man needed help as I could escort him from the LIRR platform to the subway, a 5 to 10 minute to walk.” One respondent, a racially unidentified woman aged 18–24, experienced an unexpected encounter from a stranger while walking up on the staircase too crowded by people on her way to switch subway trains during the rush hour. From her standpoint, there were two essential reasons for this public interaction to be problematic. At first, talking to and blocking someone unknown for a long while in such a crowded public area was understood as bad-mannered for her. Secondly, touching someone unknown intentionally was unacceptable to her. She described the specifics of her situational event: “On the staircase at a busy train station, someone was trying to sell something to me. I declined politely because I wasn’t interested, and it was extremely busy and crowded by the perpetual flow of many people moving.” During this whole time that she had been faced with that unacquainted stranger, multiple feelings of anger, uneasiness, disgust, and anxiety arose in her: “I felt angry, upset, anxious and a plethora of other negative emotions … He touched me without my consent and forcefully so. He continued talking to me at a close range after I said I was uninterested. He also proceeded to block my and some others’ paths so that I couldn’t walk away, but he was smiling the entire time.” Because she stood in her constant gesture of indifference to his selling products, at last, he let her go with his expression of disappointment. Another case reported by one respondent, an African-American woman aged 18–25, was about her experience of the situational encounter with a pregnant woman on the train where she was very concerned about the health of the latter and somewhat uncomfortable about public ignorance and indifference to such a particular group of people deserving special protection. While she was on her way home from work on the L train one Saturday evening, she happened to observe the unusual behaviors of a pregnant woman very carefully: “There was a pregnant woman who was sitting in a corner seat and sweating and breathing very hard. I also noticed that her pants were already wet.” Sooner or later, she felt the growing anger and frustration as she had seen some riders start moving far away from her: “I was very shocked with anger for the people who were on the train because I’m pretty sure everyone on the train has already captured this pregnant woman’s sufferings.” More importantly, the grave health problem of the pregnant woman was her real concern during the situation

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at hand: “I was really worried about her.” In this respect, my respondent extended a helping hand to her straight away.14 In the case of a public event that one respondent, an Asian woman aged 18–24, experienced on the subway, a stranger with whom she had been encountered violated both of her mental and psychological well-being (e.g., individual rights, dignity, freedom) in human autonomy and the required standards of public conduct in human community. Her situational setting was: “I was on the way to school on the E train at around 10 a.m., sometime last October [2019]. I took a seat next to a man who was spaced out a little bit from me. I had my Latin textbook with me as I was studying.” She was aware that most riders on it had been sitting a little bit away from me and that man, but she didn’t care much about it. Once she lifted her head from the book for a second and looked at him, she was already in the middle of the situational event: “He was masturbating while looking at me.” As a result, she further described what kind of emotions had run through her at that moment: “I experienced incredible fear, shock, anger, sickness … I felt harassed …” As she immediately ran to the other side of the cart, her situational encounter with him finally ended. One more example that touched on this subject of human intersectionality in a public setting was stated by one respondent, a white woman aged 18–24. In public spaces like on a subway where some people often gather together for the meantime, all people there should manage their own appearance (e.g., facial and emotional expressions, dress) and personal acts (e.g., bearing, movement and position, bodily gestures) disciplinarily what these are overall called “body idiom” (Goffman, 1963: 33). In fact, even violating such a public norm by another can also affect the personal well-­ being of another (e.g., their individual rights or freedom) there negatively, though not too serious in extent. That was the kind of public occasion that she had experienced on the subway one day. By the time she took the subway to go to school, a homeless man already on board created the situational event that she couldn’t avoid: “There was a homeless man sleeping on a very crowded subway cart, and though standing not close to him, the strong smell from this homeless man made me and other riders very unpleasant.” While standing on it, the feeling of discomfort engulfed her. She described her arousal of this situational emotion for two main reasons: “Lying down on the multiple subway seats for its passengers alone was too rude. Like me, everyone else on it also held their noses without showing what they were doing.” So, with that lingering feeling of discomfort, she got off the train at the next station.

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In short, for either one of the victims (or targets) or one of the bystanders (or onlookers) in the face of an unanticipated occasion in one of the New York City public spaces, the elicitation of their situational emotions amounts to the silent inner evocation of certain attributes of their own personal orientations. In this section of human intersectionality in which their particular personal orientations—their personal traits as something of fusing their human autonomy and human community together—came to light inside themselves, this line of argument proved to make sense on their self-reported account of their particular public experience in New York City. In other words, the abrupt natural reckoning of their certain personal orientations, while faced with—or while observing—such a situational event, also turned out to be the culmination of their situational experience that, inside themselves, embodied the mobilization of their perceptions like visual inspection, “nascent consciousness,” physiological or bodily sensations, and emotional arousal. In this chapter, the term of personal orientations has been defined as a wide assortment of individual compelling interests, beliefs, morality, norms, and attitudes. This literal expression of personal orientations has been also interchangeable with the term “the strong self” that is characteristic of the confluence of two parts of the self—the private character of the self (or the unique personal identity) and the collective nature of the self (or the social identity as a member belonging to a larger community or society, real or imagined). More importantly, as stressed above, the private character of the self has been further typified by the term of human autonomy, whereas the collective nature of the self has been synonymous with that of human community. In the context of the New York City public spaces, the focus of human autonomy has been on self-reported cases of an unexpected, or problematic, public event that involved personal matters of physical, material, or mental (or psychological) well-being, or sorts of these combinations. In contrast, for human community in the arena of personal orientations, much attention has been paid to the self-reported cases that addressed someone’s compliance with or violation of the societal-­level formal rules, informal norms, or social conventions, or that involved the occurrence, or indifference, of a sense of collective bonding or community among some people temporarily gathered at one of the city’s public spaces. The section of human intersectionality has further shown that the issue of human autonomy could matter together with that of human community from a personal point of view.

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In general, the term the situated self represents one’s temporal, subjective experience about an unanticipated event that occurred in one of the New York City public spaces. In turn, it becomes naturally activated with that happening, which would ultimately turn out to be the catalyst for eliciting particular personal orientations in themselves, whether they were placed as either one of the victims (or targets) or one of the bystanders (or onlookers) at the time. Otherwise, this situational reckoning of certain personal orientations came inside their personal world as the result of their situational perceptions, “nascent consciousness,” physiological sensations, and emotional arousal. This first phase of the situated self is what I called The Situated Self in Public I. Whatever the specifics of their encountered public event were, their perceptual capacities, especially their visual perception, always became the starting point of reawakening the particular attributes of their personal orientations in themselves at any one moment of it. Then came the “nascent consciousness” (or the instinctive situational appraisal) and physiological emotions inside their personal world at the time. But in a few self-reported cases that were revealed in this chapter, a timely makeup of the situated self was that their perceptions were promptly followed by the arousal of a single emotion or a blend of emotions together with physiological sensations, the “nascent consciousness,” and then again, the provocation of other singular emotion or multiple emotions with physiological sensations. Overall, during the whole time of their situational encounter in one of the city’s public spaces, the emotional sphere of the situated self was something so crucial to affecting the reckoning of their certain personal orientations. Thus, the emotional experience of the self at the time is “the immediate and decisive sign and proof of What ‘I’ is” (Cooley, 1902: 170). In short, the inner reckoning of their certain personal orientations materializes on the basis of their integrated working of The Situated Self in Public I that is largely made up of their perceptual sense system, “nascent consciousness,” physiological sensations, and emotional elicitation. To account for their situational but inner evocation for their particular personal orientations while faced with—or while observing—an unanticipated public event, in this chapter, there has been a lack of scrutiny on their situational aspects of both human cognitive processing (e.g., conscious monitoring and deliberation) and a set of behavioral patterns (e.g., adaptive behavioral response), which can be clearly seen as the direct result

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of their emotional experience at the time. Given the whole time of their public encounter, integrating the other constituent units of the situated self—that is, their emotional arousal, cognitive processing, and their behavioral tendencies—together is what the following two chapters attempt to address. This is also the other part of the situated self. This second phase of the situated self is what I called The Situated Self in Public II. Overall, it highlights that their emotional arousal at the time would become the driving force for bringing in their cognitive functioning (e.g., situational monitoring and deliberation) to both the eliciting event and the people directly involved in it, which further affects their strategies of action and behavioral reaction in order to find an exit from the situational encounter or resolve the situational matter, wisely or safety, on their own.

Notes 1. Cooley stated that “the private and social [collective, here] aspects of self are inseparable.” 2. As for this definition of personality, see the official website of American Psychological Association: http://www.apa.org/topics/personality/. 3. Here, a very well-known theory and research design of personality traits is this Five-Factor Model that systematizes all the personality traits of human beings into the five broad factors: Conscientiousness (C), Agreeableness (A), Neuroticism (N), Extraversion (E), and Openness to experience (O). 4. According to Schwartz (1992: 4), the primary content of a value is the type of goal or motivational concern that it expresses. More importantly, values fulfill five criteria: (1) are concepts or beliefs, (2) pertain to desirable end states or behaviors, (3) transcend specific situations, (4) guide selection or evaluation of behavior and events, and (5) are ordered by relative importance. 5. For example, Silva (2009) classified some of key human emotions into three distinctive types: knowledge emotions (e.g., confusion, surprise), hostile emotions (e.g., anger, contempt, disgust), and self-conscious emotions (e.g., shame, embarrassment, pride). 6. In my study, the self-reported descriptions on somatosensory sensations were a challenging part to many of my respondents as the longer the time of their public occasion, the less the accuracy of their self-account about it. Hence, in the phase of The Situated Self in Public I, this stage of one’s ­subjective world would mostly be described without separating its stage of experiencing emotions.

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7. For more information about New York State laws and penalties, see the following website: https://norml.org/laws/new-­york-­penalties-­2/. 8. Ibid. 9. The New York City Transit Authority (also known as the NYCTA, the TA or simply Transit, and branded as the MTA New York City Transit) is a public authority in the U.S. state of New York that operates public transportation in New York City. It is also the busiest and largest transit system in North America. For more information about the NYCTA’s descriptions on all types of offenses and fines, see the following website: http://web. mta.info/nyct/rules/TransitAdjudicationBureau/Rules%20of%20 Conduct%20and%20Fines.pdf. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid. No person, except as specifically authorized by the authority, shall enter or attempt to enter into any area not open to the public, including but not limited to train operator’s cabs, conductor’s cabs, bus operator’s seat location, station booths, closed-off areas, mechanical or equipment rooms, concession stands, storage areas, interior rooms, catwalks, emergency stairways (except in cases of an emergency), tracks, roadbeds, tunnels, plants, shops, barns, train yards, garages, depots, or any area marked with a sign restricting access or indicating a dangerous environment. 13. For more information, see the official website of the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation: https://www.nycgovparks.org/ about/health-­and-­safety-­guide/coronavirus. But, New  York State lifted this social distance rule as of June 15, 2021. 14. The part of how my respondents behaved during their encountered time of an unanticipated public event was, in more detail, dealt with in the following two chapters: Chaps. 4 and 5.

References Allport, G. (1937). Personality: A psychological interpretation. Holt. Cooley, C. H. (1902). Human nature and the social order. Scribner’s. Gilligan, C. F. (1982). In a different voice: Psychological theory and women’s development. Harvard University Press. Goffman, E. (1963). Behaviour in public places. Free Press. Goffman, E. (1971). Relations in public. Allen Lane. Graham, J., Haidt, J., & Nosek, B. A. (2009). Liberals and conservatives rely on different sets of moral foundations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96(5), 1029–1046.

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Haidt, J., & Graham, J. (2007). When morality opposes justice: Conservatives have moral intuitions that liberals may not recognize. Social Justice Research, 20, 98–116. Haidt, J., Roller, S. H., & Dias, M. G. (1993). Affect, culture, and morality, or is it wrong to eat your dog? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65(4), 613–628. Hume, D. (2009). A treatise of human nature: Being an attempt to introduce the experimental method of reasoning into moral subjects (pp.  696–724). The Floating Press. Hutcherson, C. A., & Gross, J. J. (2011). The moral emotions: A social–functionalist account of anger, disgust, and contempt. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100(4), 719–737. James, W. (1910). Psychology: Briefer course. Henry Holt and Company. Kohlberg, L. (1981). The philosophy of moral development. Harper and Row. McCrae, R. R., & Costa, P. (1987). Validation of the five-factor model of personality across instruments and observers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 82–90. McCrae, R.  R., & Costa, P. (1996). The five-factor model of personality. In J. D. Wiggins (Ed.), The five-factor model of personality: Theoretical perspectives (pp. 159–181). Guilford Press. McCrae, R.  R., & Costa, P. (2008). The five-factor theory of personality. In O.  P. John, R.  W. Robins, & L.  A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (pp. 159–181). Guilford. Mead, G. H. (1934/1962). Mind, self and society (C. Morris, ed.). University of Chicago Press. Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962). The phenomenology of perception. Routledge. Niedenthal, P.  M., Barsalou, L.  W., Krauth-Gruber, S., & Ric, F. (2005). Embodiment in attitudes, social perception, and emotion. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 9(3), 184–211. Robinson, M., & Clore, G. (2005). Episodic and semantic knowledge in emotional self-report: Evidence for two judgment processes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(1), 198–215. Rozin, P., Lowery, L., Imada, S., & Haidt, J. (1999). The CAD triad hypothesis: A mapping between three moral emotions (contempt, anger, disgust) and three moral codes (community, autonomy, divinity). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(4), 574–786. Russell, P. S., & Giner-Sorolla, R. (2013). Bodily moral disgust: What it is, how it is different from anger, and why it is an unreasoned emotion. Psychological Bulletin, 139(2), 328–351. Schwartz, S. H. (1992). Universals in the content and structure of values: Theory and empirical tests in 20 countries. In M. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 25, pp. 1–65). Academic Press.

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Shweder, R. A., Much, N. C., Mahapatra, M., & Park, L. (1997). The “Big Three” of morality (autonomy, community, divinity) and the “Big Three” explanations of suffering. In A.  M. Brandt & P.  Rozin (Eds.), Morality and health (pp. 130–150). Routledge. Siemer, M., & Reisenzein, R. (2007). The process of emotion inference. Emotion, 7(1), 1–20. Silva, P. J. (2009). Looking past pleasure: Anger, confusion, disgust, pride, surprise, and other unusual aesthetic emotions. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 3(1), 48–51.

CHAPTER 4

A Public Experience in New York City from the Lens of a Victim: The Situated Self in Public II

My notion of the situated self represents the temporally experienced world of the self during the time of a public event that occurred in New York City (Heidegger, 1962).1 During the whole time of that public occasion, the situated self was largely set up into two different but connected phases. Its first phase is actually up to the natural evocation of some attributes of one’s personal orientations as the combined result of one’s situational, subjective experience of human perceptions, “nascent consciousness,” and physiological emotions, as stressed in Chap. 3 where this first phase of the situated self was specifically called The Situated Self in Public I. The other phase of the situated self, which is the main focus of this chapter and the next chapter (Chap. 5), is a multilayered set of (or a sequence of) one’s situational emotions, cognitive processing, and behavioral reaction at the time, namely, The Situated Self in Public II. Just as the arousal of one’s emotions in the situation is central to the reckoning of certain attributes of one’s personal orientations in The Situated Self in Public I, so it also becomes the innately motivating factor for the situational activation or pause of one’s subjective consciousness and behavioral response in the phase of The Situated Self in Public II. In other words, the elicitation of one’s emotions in the situation becomes the turning point of the situated self with which The Situated Self in Public II usually works to self-diagnose and manage one’s public encounter by means of the activation of either or both of one’s subjective consciousness and adaptive behavior.

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In this second phase of the situated self, that is, The Situated Self in Public II, one’s emotions color one’s subjective consciousness (Burkitt, 1997, 2012; Holmes, 2010; Schwarz, 1990, 2002). Generally, it means that the types and degree of one’s situational emotions would affect the inner stream of one’s consciousness, which is mainly composed of two mental processes, the situational monitoring and deliberation (or cognitive appraisal).2 What I argue further here on top of this point is that one’s situational cognition (or consciousness) in this setting of The Situated Self in Public II is the direct source of one’s behavioral cue or a sort of one’s coping behavior for the sake of the situational self-management (Roseman, 2011, 2013). By and large, the emotional experience of the situated self at the time sequentially leads to the situational monitoring, appraisal, action readiness, and behavioral response, in various degrees and forms (Lazarus, 1991; Moors, 2009).3 To figure out an essential property of The Situated Self in Public II, this chapter aims to describe the self-reported cases of some victims (or the possible targets) who were earlier faced with an unanticipated public event in New York City. As for some of their self-reported cases that are introduced below, their personal experience of an unanticipated public event in the city usually belonged to one of the five main themes that cover public harassment, racism, crime, rudeness, and panhandling. Generally, the central point that runs throughout this chapter is to explore the constitution, nature, and process of one’s own situational turnaround and involvement in mind and body, which are primarily driven by one’s emotional arousal while still faced with it. Indeed, this question of what one’s situational turnaround and involvement imply for oneself can be answered more clearly through my examination of the quintessence of The Situated Self in Public II from all the different groups of public victims (or targets), each of whom can be largely classified into one of the five victim groups in terms of the level of activation of both of one’s subjective consciousness and behavioral response in the midst of their encounter with an unexpected public event in New York City. The first group of victims (or targets) are named vigilant agents (Bandura, 2001). They are, at the individual level, characteristic of the execution of prudent behavior under the auspices of their reflexive thoughts during the situational event in order to cope with it largely for their own personal safety. This group of actual or potential victims (or targets) see the provocation of their situational emotion as a valuable piece of information (or a kind of affect-laden information) or as a direct motive that pushes themselves to drive situational assessment with a reflective

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stance and to behave in the proper ways (Burkitt, 2010; Hochschild, 1983; Schwarz, 1990). What this alludes to on the whole is that even during such a challenging time they didn’t expect to meet, they would never lose—or would be willing to take on—their composed dispositions to think, judge, and act in the best personal interest and in the right direction. In turn, they themselves would become—or would be willing to become—sharp situational assessors, shrewd interactants in some cases, calm and intentional planners, and unwavering performers of coping behavior at one moment of their encountered public occasion. Not only would they play the common role of the reflexive subjects particularly in the wake of emotional arousal owing to that situation they met suddenly, but also they would prove themselves well adept at appreciating its situational process, appraising the situational positions of themselves and some of the others there, and acting tactfully (Callero, 2003; Mead, 1934/1962: 134). To put it in another way, they are so-called skillful managers of the public occasion with which they were faced. In this phase of The Situated Self in Public II, their internalized experience of human cognition is what I call “the reflexive consciousness.” Clearly, this situational state of human cognition is basically distinguishable from the “nascent consciousness” (or the “primary appraisal”) in the phase of The Situated Self in Public I, which was usually intuitively generated in themselves shortly after their perceptional senses on the public event. In another aspect, what is unique about the operation of “the reflexive consciousness” at the time is its intrinsic direct connection to their decision-making process for a set of viable behavioral options, such as facial or bodily deportment, physical movement, or a set of physical or verbal responses. Secondly, there was another group of victims (or targets) whom their elicited emotions at a moment of their public encounter had an ample impact on their behavioral conduct as the result of their personal state of falling short of their internal time to generate their cognitive reasoning, that is, their attentive monitoring and evaluative judgment (or deliberation) of it, including the people directly involved in it. When the intensity of their negative emotions at the time was far too high, it could happen that their inward capabilities to think of and coolly evaluate the positions and situational process of their own and another in it would be, entirely or almost, suspended or ineffective in extent (Mills & Kleinman, 1988). Regarding the stance of their situational conduct, which has little connection with their situational consciousness—broadly “the reflexive consciousness”— their behavioral response is mostly a self-protective one, but it can usually

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be an uncontrolled, instant behavioral reaction. Besides, the forms of their behavioral conduct in the situation are mostly either a physical or verbal response (or retaliation), or both. All together, they are called instinctive defenders with a very low level of human agency in a reflective perspective, which is really in stark contrast to the afore-mentioned first group of vigilant agents. The third group of victims (or targets) are those who were set to put a halt to both their conscious deliberation and behavioral response due to the great influence of their negative emotions while faced with it. Basically, the “numb” state of their behavioral orientations engulfed their entire body as the situational development from their own subjective angle had gone already out of control and as they had been absolutely at a loss (Mills & Kleinman, 1988). Indeed, this group of situational receptors are the completely opposite side of that of vigilant agents in terms of both aspects of the situational cognition (or consciousness) and behavioral selfmanagement. In a word, their emotional intensity during the troubled public event came to disturb their cognitive activities severely both of which further made them even stop taking any viable course of action to cope with it on their own. The fourth group of public victims (or targets) are situational escapers who, commonly and in a speedy way, carried out a set of preventive behaviors even under the profound pressure of their intense emotions. In one sense, they put great weight on their behavioral response over their subjective consciousness in an effort to deal with their situational encounter themselves. In another sense, their behavioral presentation is a kind of defensive act—in some cases, an impulsive reaction in nature—merely to avoid further danger or to protect their personal safety from their real or possible assailants (or offenders). In other words, they can be generally regarded as the instant or automatic actors who were less inclined, or who couldn’t consciously afford, to monitor and evaluate the development of the situation they came across, more carefully and thoroughly. Unlike instinctive defenders, their behavioral patterns were usually self-protective far from aggressive against their assailants (or offenders). The fifth and last group of victims (or targets), called fractured agents, take on a situational standing similar to that of situational receptors for want of their adaptive behavioral response during the whole of their challenging time. Despite their intensive emotions, some of them could come up with good situational awareness and evaluations by themselves in an effort to cope with it, while others would be merely on high alert following their emotional arousal. But, a real performance of any noticeable personal conduct is

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what is missing in common among all of them. Thus, they couldn’t carry out either coping behavior or a hasty counter-action in the face of, or against, their assailants in the situation, in particular. In short, the main purpose of this chapter is to look into the essence of The Situated Self in Public II from each of these five victim (or target) groups: vigilant agents, instinctive defenders, situational receptors, situational escapers, and fractured agents.4 By describing some self-reported cases from each of these five victim (or target) groups, what is stressed in this chapter is to show that the essence of The Situated Self in Public II in content can differ from one group of victims to another.

Vigilant Agents They were one discrete group of victims (or targets), actual or potential, who had attempted to manage an unanticipated public event they met by chance in New York City, wisely and safely. Like those people in the other four groups of public victims (or targets), they felt negative emotions at one moment of it or during its entire time. However, as stressed above, they had all a great deal of personal capabilities to self-diagnose and self-­ maneuver its situation despite their emotions running high mostly at the time. In other words, each of them was relatively good at handling it in the broad aspects of such cognitive functioning and behavioral response as conscious monitoring, evaluative judgments (appraisals and decision making), and defensive conduct. To begin with, it is necessary to look over a set of emotional states among these vigilant agents as the elicitation of their situational emotions basically becomes the self-force driving their next situational move in thought and action. Table 4.1 presents the lists of self-reported emotions from each of the vigilant agents in accordance with each of the five major themes classified—that is, public harassment, racism, crime, rudeness, and panhandling. Unsurprisingly, fear, shock, discomfort, and anger were the four dominant emotions even if most of them usually experienced two of these four negative emotions at the time. Specifically, fear and discomfort were the two most cited emotional experience among those vigilant agents in the theme of public harassment; the three emotions of shock, anger, and discomfort as the most common experience among those in the theme of public rudeness; and shock and anger as the leading emotional experience among those four vigilant agents in the theme of public racism. The feeling of discomfort is also the predominant emotion for three respondents in the theme of public panhandling.

Public harassment Public harassment Public racism Public racism

Public harassment Public harassment Public harassment

Yelling/ disturbing

26

19

7

73

67

Selling the CD Hitting/ yelling Racist remarks Gazing

Being followed

41

36

Negative comments Catcalling

28

17

Hitting/ talking Flirtation

13

Public harassment Public harassment Public harassment

Being followed

5

Public harassment

Issues

ID

Themes

Female

Female

Female

Male

Female

Female

Female

Female

Female

Female

Female

Gender

Table 4.1  Vigilant agents

Asian

Asian

White

Asian

Hispanic

Asian

Asian

Asian

Hispanic

Asian

Hispanic

18–24

18–24

18–24

18–24

18–24

18–24

18–24

18–24

18–24

18–24

25–34

Demographics Age Race groups

2020/ December

2016/ November February

2015

2018/ Spring 2014/ Summer

N/A

2012/ Winter 2016/ Spring

Winter

N/A

Year/season

5 p.m.

9 a.m.

9:30–10 p.m.

Time

On the street On the street Subway train Subway train

N/A

8 p.m.

12 p.m.

N/A

MTA bus Going to school On the N/A street In the Lunch park time

MTA bus After school

Street and subway train Subway train MTA bus

Events Place

An old man The riders

N/A

A homeless man Man

A group of school kids A group of girls Man

Man in late 20s Man

Man

Strangers

Anger

Shock

Shock

Discomfort

Discomfort

Fear

Discomfort

Fear

Shock

Anxiety

Fear

Fear

Discomfort

Confusion

Fear

Fear

Distrust

Discomfort

Fear

Discomfort

Emotions

Anger

Disgust

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Public panhandling Public panhandling

Public rudeness Public rudeness Public panhandling Public panhandling

Public rudeness Public rudeness

20

Public racism Public racism Public racism Public crime

Soliciting

Helping

13

Blocking passageway Violating the 6-feet rule Being pushed Shouted remarks Asking for money Staring

Spitting/ racial slurs Spitting/ racial slurs Racist remarks Being robbed

Issues

11

8

1

43

22

11

4

19

7

21

ID

Themes

Female

Female

Female

Male

Female

Male

Female

Female

Female

Female

Female

Female

Gender

Hispanic

White

Asian

African American Other

Asian

White

Hispanic

African American

Asian

Asian

Other

18–24

18–24

18–24

18–24

35–49

18–24

18–24

18–24

35–49

18–24

18–24

18–24

Demographics Age Race groups

N/A

2020/April

N/A

2020

N/A

Spring

2020/April

Winter

2000

February

2020/ January N/A

Year/season

Grocery store N/A

On the street On the street Subway train Outside the subway Subway train A grocery store Subway train Subway train On the street Subway train

Events Place

N/A

NA

Saturday

2 p.m.

Rush hour N/A

Rush hour N/A

2 p.m.

Late at night 8 p.m.

2–3 p.m.

Time

Women

A teenage girl A homeless man N/A

A male rider Woman

The shoppers

Woman

An old man Man

Man

Man

Strangers

Shock

Discomfort

Confusion

Anger

Shock

Shock

Shock

Anger

Fear

Shock

Shock

Shock

Discomfort

Discomfort

Discomfort

Anger

Discomfort

Discomfort

Discomfort

Shame

Anger

Emotions

Anxiety

Fear

Anger

Anger

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As to the question of what is central to subjective situational management in nature and kind in the wake of emotional provocation during the time of the public encounter, vigilant agents treated themselves as both the reflexive subjects and the independent problem solvers, both of which are inseparably related to each other. In the part of the reflexive subjects on the situational encounter, there exist two separate domains of the subjective consciousness that occurs, either simultaneously or consecutively, in the inner stream of their mind. Its first cognitive domain is the operation of their mental activity that involves all their efforts to figure out the situational process, including their own situational placement, explicit or implicit speculations about some attitudes and doings of the stranger (or the group of strangers) in it, and/or about its physical settings. In turn, it generally corresponds to the operation of their reflexive monitoring. For example, some literal expressions of it were: “I tried to keep calm and be civilized, but in case the issue would escalate I of course was ready to raise my voice”; “I ignored them to the best of my abilities, and pretended that it didn’t affect me”; “When I was wearing a mask during the subway ride and the coronavirus was pinned on Asians … I endured their stares and hateful talks [against me]”; “One guy acted like he did not know we were behind them”; “He tried touching my shoulder and was like staring at me really hard”; “The homeless man continued to follow us”; “As many people wore headphones, they might not have even heard what the man had spoken out”; and so forth. Once this situational monitoring is done, or while it is still under way in their mind, what develops next or simultaneously in their mind is the inner performance of their cognitive activity that has to do with the contemplation of their behavioral repertoires (or plans) and even their determination to take a viable course of action. This second part of subjective, situational consciousness amounts to their inner working of situational judgment (or deliberation) about the public event, including the people directly involved in it. For example, some vigilant agents expressed it in the following ways: “I was thinking of calling for help from the bus conductor. I also thought about leaving the bus”; “I had thought if something was to occur, then I would use the umbrella to protect us”; “I thought that if I woke up, they would get mad, and things would go out of hand”; “I considered what I would have done if she attacked me or my dog who was actually ill that day”; “I also did not want to give off the impression that I was afraid because I felt like it would make me more vulnerable … I also thought that I need to find a way for this man to stop

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following us without engaging in conversation with him”; “I thought about how I would stop looking around the bus … Also, I thought that I would not acknowledge the stranger”; “What I thought for a while was whether to give him a tip or refuse to give it until the end,” and so on. But in the self-reported cases of these vigilant agents, it is obviously a challenging task to differentiate these two interconnected aspects of their situational consciousness, which innately worked in their mind even in the midst of the unanticipated public encounter, subtly and clearly. Despite this fact, their inner stream of this conscious process, which ensues after their emotional arousal from it, has been overall named “the reflexive consciousness.” For each of these vigilant agents, their actual performance of a set of prudent behaviors for the sake of their own safety or for avoiding any further problem or danger at the time is another indispensable part of their situational self-management. Taken together, the delicate nexus between their subjective consciousness and the activation of the subsequent proper behavior is an important requisite for what their good management at the time materializes. Thus, given their acute situational awareness and appraisal, their self-conscious engagement to decide the best appropriate line of action obviously precedes the performance of their defensive conduct. Looking into a set of their adaptive behavioral responses, there are typically three different types, at least one of which was exercised by themselves during their situational encounter. At first, their facial presentation or bodily deportment, or both, was used as a tactful act by some of these vigilant agents. For example, the selected statements about it from some of the self-reported cases were: “I tried my best to avoid eye contact … I tried to keep my head low and look back as little as possible”; “I stayed quiet and acted as if I do not see them yelling at me”; “I ignored them because I was alone and they were a group”; “I ignored her constant offensive remarks”; “I didn’t say anything back to them”; “I did not react as I was looking out the window”; and so forth. Second, their spatial movement was another kind of strategic technique used by some vigilant agents. For instance, some literal expressions of it from them were: “Every time he moved closer, I tried to back away as best as I could”; “When I got off the bus, I ran in zig zags in order to make sure he could not follow me home or catch up to me”; “I just kept walking, I did not give any reaction to him”; “I just moved off to tell one of the MTA employees,” and so on. Third, their physical or verbal reaction is another kind of situationally adaptive act used by a handful of vigilant agents. For example, their self-reported statements were: “For a few

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people I asked if they can stay 6 feet away as its guidelines should be followed”; “I stepped back and gave him some tip”; “I opened the pocket and gave him the singles that I had,” and so on. To figure out the real substances of situational consciousness and management that are typical of these vigilant agents, let me illustrate some specific cases demonstrating the ways that they eventually became great situational agents, on the whole. As a self-reported case that lies in the theme of public harassment, one of my respondents, a Hispanic woman aged 25–34, was unexpectedly encountered with an unacquainted man who had followed her from the street even up to the inside of a subway station one evening. Her sense of imminent danger aroused her fear. To her, the intensity of this particular emotion was one thing, and her situational management toward that male stranger was another. As the conscious subject at the time, she monitored his attitudes and physical movement to her very carefully with the following emotional state: “He kept looking at me in an intimidated way. After that, he tried to get close to me to have a conversation.” In the meantime, the ways on how to deal with her awful position began being considered in her mind. A couple of her situational plans she finally had thought of were: “I was either going to find a police officer or I was going to get close to someone on the train.” One of these two defensive maneuvers was intended for use if her situational development would have become very much worse. Luckily, she had every confidence that the situation wasn’t that serious. Nonetheless, she made use of a set of planned behaviors to secure her safety from him: “For one thing, I pretended that he was not talking to me. Second, I actually got closer to the crowd that was waiting for the train, and third, I pretended that I was on the phone talking to my friend.” Another self-reported case, which was taken from the theme of public rudeness, was about the experience of another respondent, an Asian man, who had been encountered with an unidentified male rider during the rush hour on the subway where there was virtually no room to move in or out. While standing in front of a seated man in the subway that continued running, his mixed emotions of shock, discomfort, and anger abruptly popped up from inside him at the moment the male rider abruptly pushed him back harshly while standing up calmly to get off at the next stop. Nonetheless, his conscious reasoning outweighed his unpleasant emotions. At first, he made sure to keep an eye on this rude man who seemed unpredictable in behavior: “I kept watching him to avoid another of his aggression.” This situational awareness came into being in him, and at the

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same time, he also contemplated various ways to deal with this offensive rider: “I was thinking to apologize to him even though I felt I didn’t commit any wrongdoing … to give him as much as space as possible not only to leave the train but also to keep space between him and me … If he was going to be violent, I was prepared to defend myself with physical action if necessary.” With that in mind, how he had actually behaved as a set of his defensive maneuvers in the situation was: “I told him politely that I was moving and letting him off … Then I moved away from the man, and I no longer made eye contact with him.” In the theme of public racism, let us take a look at the self-reported case of a problematic matter in which an old man of color made racist remarks to my respondent, an Asian woman, and her younger sister, and both wore a hijab at that time of their subway ride with many other passengers. While they were standing on near the middle doors of the train compartment, this strange man approached and said to them, “You know 9/11, what do you think about it?” This unexpected question from someone completely unacquainted with her brought her mixed feelings of shock, discomfort, and anger. Although her sister responded to his initial question briefly but very kindly, the situational crisis never ended as he had asked more questions about the 9/11 disaster to them. In response, she and her sister took a reflective stance that accompanied a set of adaptive behaviors over the changing contexts of their situational encounter. What they had thought of and acted to him initially together was: “If we had ignored him, he would have shut up. Unfortunately, that didn’t work at all.” Next, she tried to make herself both of her conscious deliberation and behavioral reaction: “If I gave him a glare or something, he would have felt intimidated.” However, this display of her facial expression toward him had no noticeable impact on him, either. Nonetheless, she was still in control of her mind, taking a bodily deportment: “As he had inched towards us, I had taken a protective stance and was holding my umbrella tightly, in case it was needed.” Fortunately, this situational encounter ended with no more offense to them from that strange man as he hurried to get off at the next stop after slipping on the floor damp with the rain. When the theme of public panhandling comes into focus, for example, one of my respondents, a racially unidentified man aged 18–24, experienced the public occasion in which he had been encountered with a teenage girl following him to ask for money for an entire block of the street one day. This awkward situation evoked mixed feelings of anger, fear, and discomfort in him. But, these strong emotions did not totally impair his

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personal capability to manage the situation on his own. At that time, the situational monitoring and evaluative judgment that he had brought up with his conscious thinking were, “I honestly thought she was going to end up assaulting me if I kept moving on after initially denying her request … I wondered whether I would need to call the police.” Furthermore, as the self-determined actor, his choice of an adaptive behavior, which had ended up as success, was: “Several times I put down what I was carrying on to make a pretense of calling the police.” By and large, vigilant agents were all so astonished at the moment of their unanticipated encounter and felt unpleasant while faced with their offender(s). However, their emotional arousal at the time was not something that was easily revealed in their facial expression or posture or that was simply detectable particularly from their transgressors. Instead, their situational emotions went into hiding deeply inside their personal world. Indeed, they all recognized that the good self-control of their situational emotions is one of the important contributing factors for their situational self-management. More importantly, during such a situational event at risk, they attempted to activate their subjective consciousness that constitutes two interconnected domains of their mental functioning, namely, careful monitoring and evaluative judgment (or deliberation) in the situation. Eventually, such conscious deliberation, in the midst of their negative emotional state from it, became a sort of their touchstone to exercise an appropriate line of action.

Instinctive Defenders In the personal handling of a problematic event that took place in one of the New York City public spaces, the group of instinctive defenders were generally positioned in sharp contrast to that of vigilant agents. While faced with the public encounter with a stranger (or a handful of strangers), they usually lost sight of their abilities to appraise and cope with it in calm and astute manners. Usually, this overall blindness to both their reflective stance and their subsequent enactment of an adaptive behavioral response was indeed rooted in the irresistible reverberation of their strong negative emotions that arose overpoweringly in themselves. As for the sphere of cognitive functioning, which came into being after their emotional provocation in the situation, most of them however had trouble running their inner stream of consciousness particularly in the aspect of their situational deliberation that pertains to their meticulous thinking about a set of

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coping plans. Nonetheless, some of them could bring in their own faculty capable of monitoring the situational development, which is unfortunately never tightly connected with their profound mental activity, that is, their decision-making process necessary for their own situational management. Since their personal capability of critical reflection during the situational encounter remained unmoving, any scheme of a proper action at the time was unlikely to emerge in their mind. Basically, their emotional arousal at the time resulted in their instant reactions—verbal or behavioral, or both—against their offender(s), comparatively devoid of their conscious deliberation. At first, Table 4.2 shows the classification of all the instinctive defenders under the four key themes where public harassment is the vast majority of self-reported cases. Because they were mostly in a vulnerable or defensive position during the whole time of the public event with which they had been encountered, one or more negative emotions, such as fear, anger, or shock especially, held sway over them. As a whole, these patterns of their emotional language were not much different from what the majority of vigilant agents experienced during their own public encounter. However, unlike vigilant agents, instinctive defenders were generally not considered as the thoughtful and rational actors because their situational context astounded them powerfully enough to lose their temper or to leave no room for the use of their independent thinking skills. On the whole, there existed three broad types of their instinctive, imprudent reactions at the time: verbal expressions; facial, bodily, or behavioral displays; and a mixture of both. For example, some literal expressions of their verbal expressions were: “I screamed loudly and angrily at the stranger. I yelled ‘fuck you’”; “I shouted out to him, ‘Are you crazy?”’; “I was screaming for help”; or “I told him that he should not have put his hands on me.” As for their facial, bodily, or behavioral displays, for instance, two of these passages were: “I looked at him with disgust”; or “[a]s she continued to follow me and I had nowhere to escape from her, I bit the stranger, I punched her, and I kicked her.” Besides, some of these instinctive defenders even assailed their offenders: “I just hit him … I told him about how he was being unbelievably disgusting”; “I got out of my car and yelled at him”; “I turned around and screamed”; or “[a]s he approached me, I screamed and ran into a train.” Below are three self-reported cases demonstrating that these three respondents were sure to be instinctive defenders. The first example is about the experience of one respondent, an Asian woman aged 18–24.

Slapping

Touching

Spitting/ yelling Following/ grabbing Threatening Assaulting

Evaluating

Public harassment 25

Public harassment 29

Public harassment 39

8

5

9

10

20

45

Public racism

Public crime

Public crime

Public rudeness

Public rudeness

Public rudeness

Public harassment 56 Public harassment 66

Public harassment 42

Blocking

Pushing/ yelling Pushing/ yelling

Assaulting

Mugging

Grabbing/ pushing Assaulting

Public harassment 14

Public harassment 23

Insulting

Public harassment 12

Issues

Touching

ID

Public harassment 6

Themes

Female

Female

Female

Female

Female

Female

Female Female

Female

Female

Female

Female

Female

Female

Female

Female

Gender

Table 4.2  Instinctive defenders

African American

African American Asian

White

African American Hispanic

White White

Asian

Asian

Asian

White

Hispanic

Asian

Hispanic

Hispanic

Demographics Race

25–34

18–24

18–24

18–24

35–49

18–24

18–24 25–34

18–24

25–34

35–49

18–24

25–34

18–24

18–24

18–24

Age groups

Events Place

2020/ Spring

Subway train

Subway train Retail store On the street 2018/ Subway December train 2015/ Park Summer 2017 Subway train 2007/ On the Winter street Winter On the street N/A Driving N/A On the street 2019/ Subway Winter train N/A On the street 2020/ On the February street N/A MTA bus N/A Subway train

2016/ April Holiday season N/A

Year/ season

Anger Fear

Shock

Fear

Fear

Shock

Anger

Shock

Anger

Anger

Anger

Anger

Shock

Shock

A drunk man Fear

A white man Shock

An old man Two men

Man

A homeless man Man

Man

10:30 p.m. Four young men Morning Woman rush hour N/A A middle-aged man Morning Woman rush hour

Afternoon rush hour N/A

N/A Midnight

Morning rush hour 7 p.m.

N/A

Afternoon

Woman

Woman

Woman

N/A Morning rush hour 10 a.m.

Man

Strangers

N/A

Time

Anger

Fear

Discomfort

Discomfort

Shock

Anger

Anger

Confusion Racism

Annoyance Anger

Fear

Shock

Sadness

Shame

Shock

Fear

Fear

Confusion

Emotions

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During the morning rush hour not far away from a subway station, she was harassed by an unacquainted woman who grabbed her elbow and pushed her aside. This unanticipated encounter with that unknown woman aroused the feelings of shock and fear in her. What’s more, her strong emotions blocked both of her inner clock of thinking about the personal motives of that woman’s misbehaviors and her own sensible ways to manage the situation suitably. Instead, what she had reacted immediately after that inner eruption of her emotions was: “I didn’t have time to think, just I acted instinctively. I strongly shook off her arm and speedily walked to the train station as fast as I could.” In this same theme of public harassment, there is another self-reported case for which one respondent, a white woman aged 25–34, became the instinctive defender in the face of a serious threat from two unknown men on her way home from work around midnight. At the very moment when both men were speedily approaching her, it caused her to tremble in fear. Thus, a feeling of fear had persisted in her as “they were touching me when I stepped past each other.” While she was still being overwhelmed with her feeling of fear, there was a low-toned remark from one of these two men to her: “The man on my left leaned into my ear and whispered, ‘I’m gonna rape you.’” His despicable comment of this kind further sparked in her a burning feeling of wrath. Without any conscious deliberation as well as without any hesitation, her impulsive reaction to both men was: “I screamed at them, ‘What the fuck?! You’re going to rape me?!’” Surprisingly, her dangerous situation very quickly came to an end as “my reaction of this uncontrolled rage was loud enough to scare them to turn quickly around and leave.” One more self-reported case that is relevant to this topic of instinctive defenders was taken from the theme of public crime. This is about the public occurrence of another respondent, a white woman aged 18–24, who experienced her own victimization in assault from a group of four unidentified young men while walking home from her place of work late one night. Although she observed them before that occurrence, she thought that it was unnecessary to take any safety precaution toward them as “there was plenty of light as well as other people around.” Then, unfortunately, she was soon met with the dangerous acts from all of them right away: “All of a sudden, these four men ran at me, one of them trying to grab my takeaway bag and crashing into my arm at the same time.” She was shocked at their swift violence that had come at her unguarded moments. Due to their sudden attacks and the subsequent emotional

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strains, she had no room to evaluate and manage her situational context calmly anymore. But automatically, she turned out to be the instinctive defender against her assaulters: “I yelled at him.” Soon, her loud scream brought about a completely shifting phase of the situation: “They quickly ran away.” Coincidently, an unanticipated public event that each of these three instinctive defenders had experienced was terminated without taking a turn for the worse as they didn’t have any further mishap with their assailants. But in the three other self-reported cases that were not described here, these other instinctive defenders were actually hurt more as their verbal and/or bodily reactions directly to their offenders provided the reason for a recurrence of the latter’s physical attacks on them. In short, instinctive defenders generally couldn’t control themselves well during their situational encounter, but instead, they reacted instinctively or quickly, in verbal and/or physical ways, to their assailants under their personal state of situational consciousness in partial or full disarray.

Situational Receptors Before the happening of a problematic event in one of the New York City public spaces, no actual or potential victims for it were ready to prepare themselves for what would take place there soon before them. Undoubtedly, such routine state of their mental and behavioral unguardedness could come to an end suddenly with their heightened emotions when faced with it. As stated above, this can be clearly applied to the group of instinctive defenders. The same also holds true for another victim (or target) group, here known as the group of situational receptors. There is one more thing in common between both victim (target) groups when faced with it. Thus, what makes them especially troubling during their situational encounter in public is the matter that their cognitive functioning was not working well or stopped working to a great extent. However, this does not mean that all of them in either group are in the totally unconscious state all the time until it finally comes to an end. As a matter of fact, some of them in either group were, to a greater or lesser degree, aware of their own situational positions and some, or any, other activities of their assailants toward them or another there in spite of their strong emotions overwhelming them at the time. On top of this, some of them also could acknowledge all the current trouble of their own or their personal safety even in the weak functioning or stoppage of their conscious deliberation. Taken together,

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however, their attempt to grapple with their situational problem, coupled with some behavioral plans, was totally lacking. Nonetheless, what distinguishes between these two victim groups is that situational receptors didn’t take any type of action, defensive or retaliatory, to deal with their situational problem or against their assailants; for instinctive defenders, the converse held true, however. Rather than seeing no behavioral reaction as one of their coping tactics, their emotional experience itself left themselves in a nearly numb state. To put it simply, situational receptors were a group of the victims who were individually passive in both aspects of their cognitive processing and behavioral reaction in the aftermath of their intensive emotions provoked by their situational encounter with a stranger (or a handful of strangers) in public. Table 4.3 presents all the self-reported cases of the situational receptors in accordance with each of the four major themes classified—that is, public harassment, racism, crime, and rudeness. For situational receptors themselves, their emotional intensity caused by their public encounter with the unfamiliar stranger(s)—for example, the assailant(s) or somebody else becoming a menace to them—was immense. Consequently, their cognitive propensities to read the situational event and appraise its situational process carefully were not working well in their inner world, either. To some of them, however, this personal incompetence that failed to carry their conscious deliberation thoroughly during the situation is unrelated to the other part of their mental functioning, that is, their cognitive faculty of situational monitoring. Thus, their situational awareness in the wake of their emotional provocation worked out, to a greater or lesser degree. For example, some of them expressed this particular part of their mental functioning in the following ways: “Everyone was just rushing around trying to get to where they need to be going”; “When this happened, I turned to the other girl almost as if I wanted confirmation that we witnessed the same thing”; “I prayed that he would understand that I was trying to avoid him”; or “[a]s the situation intensified, I was aware that their bodies stiffened and their eyes turned so nervous.” Since each of situational receptors was going through the complete or partial disruption of their cognitive processing as the result of their strong negative feelings at the time, a clear disjunction between self-­ consciousness and the subsequent behavioral plans also became inevitable. What is more important here is the fact that the uncontrollability of their situational management culminates in the suspension of their behavioral responses to deal with their problematic event or its offenders until it terminates. For instance, some of these literal expressions were: “My body

Public harassment Public harassment Public harassment Public racism Public racism Public racism Public crime Public crime Public crime Public rudeness

Selling

Racist gestures Racist remarks Racist remarks Assaulting

62

2

Mugging

Mugging

Pushing

6

18

17

3

11

4

Yelling

58

Female

Male

Female

Female

Female

Female

Female

Female

Female

Following Female

Female

Shouted remarks

43

Female

Gender

Yelling

ID Issues

Public 18 harassment Public 19 harassment

Themes

Table 4.3  Situational receptors

African American African American Asian

Hispanic

Hispanic

Other

Asian

Other

White

Other

Other

White

18–24

25–34

25–34

25–34

18–24

18–24

18–24

18–24

18–24

18–24

18–24

18–24

Demographics Age Race groups

Events Place

2019/Spring Subway train 2019/ On the November bus station 2015/Winter Subway train 2020/ Subway February station N/A Subway station 2020/ Subway February train 2019 On the street Winter MTA bus 2012/ On the Summer street N/A Subway train 2010 On the street 2020/Spring On the street

Year/season

N/A

Midnight

In the evening In the morning In the evening 2 p.m.

In the evening Morning rush hour Morning rush hour 3 p.m.

N/A

N/A

Time Uncertainty

Fear

Anger

Shock Discomfort

Shock Fear

Shock Anger

Fear

Emotions

Shock Anger

N/A

Men

Anger Discomfort

Shock Fear

A young Shock Fear man Man Shock Anger

Woman

Male Fear Anger teenagers Man Shock Anger

Man

Woman

Man

Man

Man

Strangers

Anger

Fear

Discomfort

Hopelessness

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was stiff, and chills ran through my skin”; “After he touched me, I was freezing”; “Without any reaction, I just sat on my seat with the feelings of shock and sadness”; “When I turned back, he had already left”; “A man grabbed my cellphone and ran away. The train doors were closed. I could not go out to get the phone”; or “[a]t that moment, I didn’t know what to do.” It is now necessary to go into details for several examples that fit well into the personal experience of these situational receptors. The first self-­ reported case was the account of one respondent, a white woman aged 18–24, who had been faced with a strange man coming very close to her and yelling at her while waiting for the 6-subway train to go back home. During this totally unexpected encounter with that male stranger, a wave of fear swept over her. At the same time, his sudden threat brought herself to the feeling of great uncertainty about the incoming development of the situation as well: “I was unsure of what was going to happen.” Thus, any kind of assault on her turned out to be her genuine safety concern rather than the warning sign for any of her own situational awareness or assessment: “I also feared he could’ve had a weapon on him … I could not think, all I had in my mind was that I wanted to be home safe.” With her inner stream of situational consciousness adrift, she also halted any behavioral activation to cope with the situation putting her life in danger: “I stood there looking and motionless completely. I did not know what to do.” Second, one of my respondents, a racially unidentified woman aged 18–24, was a victim of racist remarks abruptly made by an unfamiliar man while she was walking along tightly with her family members on a street in her own neighborhood. As soon as she heard a man passing next to them shout at them by saying, “Go back to your country,” some mixed emotions—shock, anger, discomfort, and sadness—began pouring out in her. Although she had been so absorbed in her intense feelings from such strong racism, her willingness of situational monitoring was not completely lost: “His spouse kept telling him to keep moving … Another man passing the street had to intervene and tell him to leave us alone … At the time I just kept thinking what made this man believe his words.” But, what she had completely lost in the situation was no deliberate thought and response, verbal or behavioral, in reaction to his racial slur targeting her and her family: “My little cousin began crying … But I froze there, unable to speak.” Her situational event ended soon because he had walked away with his family.

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Here is one more self-reported example that is of relevance. This case involves the experience of one respondent, a Hispanic woman aged 25–34, who was assaulted in her neighborhood early in the evening by a young man on a bicycle ride. On pedaling hard toward her and passing her closely by, he struck her chest and snatched the gold chain around her neck. This public assault that she had never expected was more than enough to stir the feelings of shock and fear in her. On the one hand, her cognitive capabilities were severely damaged due to her strong emotional state: “I was so shocked and afraid and at a loss of words … I couldn’t even tell you how he looks like.” Likewise, because of her intense emotions, she was also not about to seek some ways to deal with her trouble in the aspect of behavioral reaction at the time: “I was in such a shock that I didn’t scream or yell out toward his back. I just stood in silence.” A few minutes after her problematic situation was ended, she walked home directly and briskly. On the whole, each of situational receptors was really cast adrift in their situational management at both of their conscious and behavioral levels. Indeed, their emotional arousal that had arisen during their problematic encounter with the stranger(s) in one of the city’s public spaces left themselves with such personal trouble up until it was completely terminated. Therefore, it is not surprising to find that the general features of their situational handling are quite a stark contrast to those of vigilant agents.

Situational Escapers As soon as their intense, negative emotions had arisen owing to the encounter of an unanticipated public event in the city, another group of the actual or potential victims, called situational escapers, took on the stance of instant or quick actors in dealing with it or its offenders on their own. While faced with it, the swiftness of their actions came indeed from their concerns, or their instinctive nature, about either their immediate safety issue or their sense of an impending danger. From that point on, they can be obviously positioned differently from situational receptors who didn’t make use of any coping behavior as the last resort to dodge the challenging time of their public encounter. Compared to instinctive defenders, they were also far from aggressive against their assailants. Rather, their situational actions were set to be largely defensive or reactive in nature enough by acting their full-bodied avoidance in any further confrontation with their assailants. By the same token, their behavioral activation seems to have no direct nexus with their conscious deliberation. This makes a big

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difference from vigilant agents who were both the reflexive subjects and the prudent actors for their situational self-management. For situational escapers, the main reason for the disturbed state of their situational consciousness sprang from their overwhelming emotions that they were quite unable to control themselves at the time. Interesting enough, all the situational escapers are clustered in the same theme of public harassment, according to Table 4.4. While faced with the public occasion each of them met by chance in New York City, their emotional experience drove them to deal with it by taking certain actions as quickly as possible. On the one hand, some of them resorted to running away as the best option for their situational self-­ management. For example, one of them, a Hispanic woman aged 25–34, used this specific behavioral reaction at the beginning of a stranger’s threat to harass her on the subway train: “I had my eyes closed. All of a sudden, I heard a man’s voice saying ‘Open up your eyes sweetie.’ When I opened my eyes, I saw a man standing in front of me … As soon as the train made a stop at the next station, I ran quickly out of the train. I kept running.” On the other hand, the rest of them managed their problematic situation by walking fast or walking away from their assailants. For example, one respondent, an Asian woman aged 18–24, was unexpectedly stopped by a middle-aged man who told her that she was very beautiful and cute, and who asked for her phone number, while she was walking alone around a SoHo (acronym for South Houston) area in Manhattan one day. Her adaptive behavior she had brought into play swiftly at the time was: “I walked away very quickly to avoid any further confrontation with him.” As another point that is noticeable from some of these self-reported accounts, the part of their reflective consciousness almost stopped working during the entire time of their situational encounter. Thus, their cognitive activities went almost absent in bridging the gap between the stage of their situational emotions and that of their situationally adaptive conduct. As a matter of fact, their urgent needs to secure their safety from their assailants are the missing link between these two situational arrangements for them, which can also result in the dysfunction of their subjective consciousness. This is one of the important features that distinguishes situational escapers from those of the other victim groups. As evidence for this point, let me illustrate two selected self-reported cases. At first, one respondent, a Hispanic woman aged 18–24, had been encountered with a man flirting her by praising her beauty and asking for her contact number on the side of the street near the subway station. Although she felt discomfort, she

3

Public harassment Public harassment Public harassment Public harassment Public harassment Public harassment Public harassment Public harassment Public harassment Female Asian

38 Flirtation

Female White

63 Flirting/ following 64 Catcalling

72 Threatening Female Asian

Female Asian

Female Other

61 Following

40 Flirting/ Female Hispanic following 50 Obscene act Female Asian

Female White

21 Touching

Events Place

Subway train 18–24 N/A Subway train 18–24 2016/ On the Summer street 18–24 2018/ On the Fall street 18–24 2019/ Subway Fall train 25–34 N/A On the street 18–24 2016/ On the Fall street 18–24 Summer On the street 18–24 2018/ On the July street

25–34 N/A

Gender Demographics Age Year/ Race groups season

Threatening Female Hispanic

ID Issues

Themes

Table 4.4  Situational escapers

Man

Man

Man

Man

Strangers

Early in the evening

N/A

N/A

Man

Man

Man

In the Man morning N/A Man

N/A

N/A

In the evening N/A

Time

Shock

Fear

Shock

Shock

Shock

Fear

Disgust

Shock

Fear

Fear

Discomfort

Fear

Anger

Discomfort

Anger

Shock

Emotions

Anger

Fear

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ignored his uncanny intrusion by continuing to walk at her normal pace. But she came to the crux of her situation right away: “He started following me and started waving at me.” That was another situational moment that caused a flood of fear to sweep over her: “I was very scared as he would try to harm me anyway.” As for the question of her cognitive processing, that is, both of her cognitive monitoring and deliberation, she wrote, “I did not really think of any ways to cope with it.” For her own part, the urgency of immediate action took precedence in order to deal with her difficult time: “I kept walking quickly away … I went up the stairs at the train station, and finally I could take the train.” In another self-reported case, one respondent, an Asian woman aged 18–24, was under a great threat from a man she and her friend couldn’t see well in the dark while they had been taking a stroll after dinner in her neighborhood early in the evening. The moment that the man dashed, screamed, and threw his hands toward them, she was caught in a whirling vortex of shock and fear: “This encounter really shocked me … As I had no clue of his motive, I was also in a state of fear and terror.” Her emotional unsteadiness further led to her state of situational consciousness in total disarray: “I was too panicked to think of anything.” Intuitively, how both of them had acted instantaneously after a moment was: “We ran in panic … We quickly ran back into her house … My instinct was to just run.” Indeed, escaping from an imminent danger was their natural response in the situational absence of their conscious deliberation. To all these situational escapers, their behavioral reaction in the wake of the elicitation of their strong emotions caused by their public encounter was a desperate bid to escape from their assailants, actual or potential. Whenever our lives are put in danger at any really problematic event, most of us, like those situational escapers, would act first and think afterward.

Fractured Agents The last group of victims, actual or potential, are fractured agents who were largely situational spectators at a public event with which each of them had been faced in New York City. In distinguishing their situational features from those of the afore-mentioned four other victim groups, at first, they assessed their problematic event relatively more carefully even under an intense weight of their negative emotions, as compared with instinctive defenders, situational receptors, or situational escapers. But relative to vigilant agents, they cannot be regarded as the full-fledged

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conscious subjects capable of appraising their situational occasion and its development thoroughly under good self-control over their inner emotions. Although most of them were well aware of its situational development and their challenging placement in it, the functioning of their subjective consciousness at the time hadn’t reached up to the level of the deep self-appraisal enough to consider some practical behavioral plans for their situational management. Moreover, with regard to the part of personal behavioral tendencies at the time, fractured agents, like situational receptors, also were generally kept inactive. Thus, the self-activation of their careful conduct in reaction to their encountered public occasion, or against their assailants at the time, was momentarily halted until its complete termination. That could happen when they were caught up in a surge of some negative emotions caused by a huge personal impact of that unexpected public matter. Another possible reason is a certain degree of their situational indeterminacy of what behavioral options are available for them in the situation or against its assailants. Table  4.5 presents all the self-­ reported cases of the fractured agents in accordance with each of the four major themes classified—that is, public harassment, crime, rudeness, and panhandling. Despite strong emotional agitation due to the great impact of the problematic event they faced in one of the New York City public spaces, fractured agents were, in a sense, a sort of reflexive subject at the time, to a low or moderate degree. Thus, they had relatively good capabilities on their monitoring of its situational development, including the next possible move of the assailants. For instance, one respondent, an African-American woman aged 18–24, experienced a specific type of sexual harassment from a male subway rider on the crowded train: “There was a much larger man standing behind me, and I sensed that he had touched my butt accidentally on the packed train … I shifted a little more away from him the best I could, then I still felt him grabbing my butt.” Just at that moment, she felt total shock and fear. However, she bravely started to monitor his body postures and his motions toward her: “When I turned slightly to get a glimpse of his face, I saw him looking directly at me. Then he was still trying to touch that part of my body by casting furtive glances at me and acting like he never did anything wrong.” In addition to this constituent segment of cognitive processing in the midst of the situational event—that is, situational monitoring—some of these fractured agents further attempted to evaluate it critically to come up with some behavioral tactics for its situational management on their own.

Assaulting

Offensive remarks Pushing

10

Public 7 rudeness Public 30 rudeness Public 12 panhandling

Soliciting/ threatening

Touching

65

27

Hitting/ following Touching

22

Public harassment Public harassment Public harassment Public crime

Issues

ID

Themes

Age groups

Female

Asian

18–24

35–49

White

Male

Female

African 25–34 American Asian 18–24

African 18–24 American African 18–24 American Hispanic 18–24

Demographics Race

Female

Female

Female

Female

Gender

Table 4.5  Fractured agents Events Place

2018/ Fall

2009

Subway train Subway train

Subway platform N/A Subway train 2014/ Subway October train 2011/ On the Spring street N/A MTA bus

2019

Year/ season

Shock

Shock

Shock

Fear

Anger

A group of Shock young men A bus driver Shock

Man

Man

Man

Strangers

Afternoon rush hour Morning N/A rush hour In the evening Man

In the morning N/A

N/A

N/A

Time

Embarrassment

Fear

Discomfort

Annoyance Shame

Anger

Fear

Anger

Fear

Discomfort

Emotions

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They were overall successful at appraising their own situational placement as well as that of their assailants relatively well. However, they also struggled to determine what would be one of the viable plans for themselves to consider acting for their situational self-management. For example, another respondent, an African-American woman aged 25–34, was once placed in a similar circumstance. On her way to a store on the street, she was attacked by a group of young men: “They pushed me and started grabbing on my purse.” Inside her at the time, she felt very shocked and appalled at their short yet forceful assault against her. But, such personal danger in her life couldn’t stop her from appraising her situational position and a set of defensive maneuvers: “Initially during the encounter, I was fighting back them to take my purse back. However, I also thought that the young men could hurt me … Except that, I did not think of any action plan aimed at coping with the situational moment.” Under a wave of their negative emotions caused by the occurrence of an unanticipated public event in the city, the delineations of the interplay between their situational cognition and the subsequent behavioral reaction can definitely enhance our understanding about the patterns of situational management typical of these fractured agents. For example, there is a self-reported case that one respondent, an Asian woman aged 18–24, underwent an unanticipated encounter with a bus driver with a callous temperament. At the outset, she was entered into this problematic situation: “My brother and I got on the bus to attend his school’s awards ceremony, and as I was about to swipe my student metro card, then at that very moment, the bus driver had told us that we weren’t allowed to use them.” When she spoke to him about her and her brother’s student statuses in brief and swiped her student metro card anyhow, her situational crisis was at a really peak level as he burst into anger to her: “After I swiped, the bus driver shouted to me.” Despite of her strong feelings of shock, anger, and embarrassment, she boldly sat with her brother in two unoccupied seats in recognition of the fact that they were already late to the ceremony. But she could hear more of his vociferous expressions of fury and insults toward them in front of many bus riders: “He kept loudly reiterating how the student metro cards are only meant to get to and from school, not for any other reason.” His unstoppable reproach to both her and her brother didn’t drive her out of mind: “I didn’t know what to say if I should respond to him again.” She and her brother sat there speechless and motionless until the announcement of their destination station was finally made out from the automatic audio system of the bus.

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Another relevant example is the public experience of another respondent, a Hispanic woman aged 18–24, that happened in one year of her high school in New York City. Her mixed emotions of shock, anger, fear, and discomfort came pouring out at the very moment when she had sensed some touch around her crotch area perpetually by somebody on the crowded train. After a short moment, she attempted to figure out who did it and whether such a physical touch was an intentional act or just an accident: “I then noticed that there was an older man not so far away from me. I didn’t want to face him … so I just looked away.” Even if she reached such a conclusion, she still felt very uncomfortable and terrible to continue standing in her spot. Not surprisingly, she pondered what to do next: “I thought about getting out it at the next stop.” But, she didn’t actually do it: “It [the subway train] was too packed to get off for the next train station.” For all the fractured agents, by and large, their situational consciousness that unfolded in themselves immediately after their emotional arousal caused by their public encounter was, to some degree, working, though not perfect. In other words, no signifying action taken during the whole time of it is never something that amounts to the byproduct of their deliberate or prudent act on the ground of their high self-consciousness and self-control in it. Instead, it just materialized, either unintentionally or automatically. When the magnitude of its circumstances, especially at the emotional level, was too immense, they could be held at a loss by placing themselves in stasis for a while or even until it was finally ended. For individual victims (or targets), whose personal trouble of the situational encounter had happened during their appearance into one of the New York City public spaces, their emotional arousal became their situational turning point in it.5 In other words, during this alarming public occasion, their emotional experience would become “the basis of critical adaptive functions” to deal with it on their own (Izard, 2007). Indeed, the elicitation of their negative emotions in the face of it operates as a kind of their inner signal they need to react to, or counteract it, in their own ways. In general, this second phase of the situated self, what is also called The Situated Self in Public II, corresponds to the whole of their self-­ consciousness and behavioral orientations in the wake of their negative emotions at the time. Overall, it was my main argument in this chapter that for each of them, this second phase of the situated self presents a really complex interplay and confluence of their emotions, subjective cognition (or consciousness), and behavioral tendencies in the situation. In turn, this

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is congruent with this point that the contours of their own situational management during the time of their public encounter can be generally identified through the various interrelationships and confluence of these three key constituent elements of their personal, subjective world at the time. Here, of particular importance are the delicate relationships between their subjective consciousness and behavioral reaction in the midst of their situational encounter. To put it simply, their subjective consciousness in the situation comprises two aspects of their cognitive mechanism (e.g., situational monitoring and deliberation for behavioral plans), whereas their behavioral reaction reflects the level of the activation of their prudent (or instinctive) conduct. From that point on, there existed five victim (or target) groups—vigilant agents, instinctive defenders, situational receptors, situational escapers, and fractured agents—within each of which they had similar ways of approaching or dealing with their problematic public encounter in the city. Prior to their situational move or standstill in thought and/or action, the only thing they had in common was their situational placement as one of the victims, actual or potential. Just as people in the same group of victims were further differently positioned in their situational settings, such as the time of their public appearance, a particular type of public space, and the personal identities of their strangers (or assailants) whom they encountered, they also experienced the different types, intensity, and duration of their negative emotions at the time. Nonetheless, those people in the same victim group were very similar in managing—or putting themselves in—their own challenging situation. The core reason is because those people in the same victim group revealed similar patterns in both aspects of their subjective consciousness and behavioral reaction in the wake of their emotional provocation caused by the unexpected public encounter. More specifically, making the best use of both their subjective consciousness and behavioral reaction robustly during that situational time of their trouble was typically done by vigilant agents, while situational receptors were the marked contrast to them on the other hand. In the meantime, the other three groups of victims—instinctive defenders, situational escapers, and fractured agents—could be put in place between these two extreme victim groups even if they were somewhat approached similarly in a certain aspect of either their subjective consciousness or their behavioral reaction in the situation, but quite dissimilarly in comparison with those victims in the other two groups, here vigilant agents and situational receptors.

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This same subject of The Situated Self in Public II continues to be explored in the next chapter from the perspective of bystanders (onlookers, observers, or companions). It is my great interest to examine the essence (or entity) of The Situated Self in Public II from this large group of bystanders who all experienced an unanticipated public event in New York City, and to compare the similarities and differences in the constituent units, character, and process of The Situated Self in Public II between these two larger groups of public victims and bystanders. In the following chapter, it is also important to address the subjective meanings of an unanticipated public event from each of those bystanders’ own perspective, as well as in the context of the subtle interplay among their emotions, subjective consciousness, and behavioral reaction during their own situational encounter in one of the New York City public spaces. Whether they were one of the victims or one of the bystanders on the encountered public occasion in the city, their personal experience of The Situated Self in Public II would have an important implication for their present-time urban style in public, that is, their current urban public outlooks and urban public behaviors while reappearing across the New York City public spaces both at the present time and in the future.

Notes 1. Analogically, the term the situated self coincides with the “Dasein” (being there) of the self temporally with concern, according to Martin Heidegger’s Being and time (pp. 403–408). In this view, the self is “a way of Dasein’s Being” that embodies “the ontico-ontological conditions” (pp. 34, 117). As for the situated self, the phrase of “Dasein” (being there) of the self represents its ontological appearance (or its existence factically) at the very moment the self faces, or observes, an unanticipated public event in the city by chance, while the allusion of the adverb “temporally” is the whole and subjective time of the self’s experience with it at the time. For the ontical part, Dasein is “an entity whose Being has the determinate character of existence” (p. 34). In exactly the same sense, Dasein is “an entity for which, in its Being, that Being is an issue … Dasein’s ‘Being-ahead-of-itself’” (p. 236). This account also means that the situated self is really concerned about oneself at the time of an unanticipated public event in the city. When this point is applied to the situated self, it has its own self-projective potentiality during its temporary duration, that is, the inexorable possibility of ­activating one’s perceptions, sensory and physiological responses, emotions, cognitions, and/or behavioral tendencies.

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2. In the phase of The Situated Self in Public I, human consciousness is one’s “nascent consciousness” that occurs usually after emotional arousal and that reflects the instinctive sense of one’s situational placement. On the contrary, human consciousness in the phase of The Situated Self in Public II is not only a product of one’s emotional arousal but also the stream of one’s mental processes that allude to the cognitive activities of situational monitoring, evaluation, and judgment (or deliberation). 3. Rather than viewing the situational emotions that are separate from the situational cognition, action tendencies, and motor responses, Moors (2009: 626) argues, in the notion of emotional episode, that it consists of the four main components: “(a) stimulus evaluation or appraisal; (b) monitoring (which may serve the further function of control or regulation); (c) preparation and support of action; and (d) action.” His argument is similar to what Lazarus (1991: 173) treated an emotion as a superordinate concept containing the cognitive appraisal and physiological and behavioral reaction. 4. One issue that is very difficult to deal with here is the complexity of their emotional experiences. For it has to do with their self-reports of no single but multiple emotions, an ambiguity in the relative importance of these multiple emotions, the hidden meanings of emotional change among some of them in moments of the situational process, and so on. 5. In fact, the majority of these victims were women in my study.

References Bandura, A. (2001). Social cognition theory: An agentic perspective. Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 1–26. Burkitt, I. (1997). Social relationships and emotions. Sociology, 31(1), 37–55. Burkitt, I. (2010). Dialogues with self and others: Communication, miscommunication, and the dialogical unconscious. Theory & Psychology, 20(3), 305–321. Burkitt, I. (2012). Emotional reflexivity: Feeling, emotion and imagination in reflexive dialogues. Sociology, 46(3), 458–472. Callero, P. (2003). The sociology of the self. Annual Review of Sociology, 29, 115–133. Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time. Harper & Row. (Original work published 1927). Holmes, M. (2010). The emotionalization of reflexivity. Sociology, 44, 139–154. Hochschild, A. R. (1983). The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling. University of California Press. Izard, C. E. (2007). Basic emotions, natural kinds, emotion schemas, and a new paradigm. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2(3), 260–280. Lazarus, R. (1991). Emotion and adaptation. Oxford University Press.

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Mead, G. H. (1934/1962). Mind, self and society (C. Morris, ed.). University of Chicago Press. Mills, T., & Kleinman, S. (1988). Emotions, reflexivity, and action: An interactionist analysis. Social Forces, 66(4), 1009–1027. Moors, A. (2009). Theories of emotion causation: A review. Cognition & Emotion, 23(4), 625–662. Roseman, I. J. (2011). Emotional behaviors, emotional goals, emotion strategies: Multiple levels of organization integrate variable and consistent responses. Emotion Review, 3(4), 434–443. Roseman, I. J. (2013). Appraisal in the emotion system: Coherence in strategies for coping. Emotion Review, 5(2), 141–149. Schwarz, N. (1990). Informational and motivational functions of affective states. In T. Higgins & R. Sorrentino (Eds.), Handbook of motivation and cognition: Foundations of social behavior (pp. 527–561). Guilford. Schwarz, N. (2002). Situated cognition and the wisdom of feelings: Cognitive tuning. In L.  F. Barrett & P.  Salovey (Eds.), The wisdom in feelings (pp. 144–166). Guilford.

CHAPTER 5

A Public Experience in New York City from the Lens of a Bystander: The Situated Self in Public II

People would naturally instill their sobering experience in life in their mind and body. Many regular users of the New York City public spaces have already had one of such personal experiences. For one thing, it was a problematic or challenging event that they didn’t expect to come across. For another, their unanticipated encounter with such a public event was their subjective time for a temporal emergence of the constitution, nature, and process of the situated self.1 Indeed, this temporal subjective development of the situated self at that particular time and place can be truly identified with two distinct but interconnected phases of their personal self: (1) The Situated Self in Public I, which integrates their subjective engagement of human perceptions, the “nascent consciousness,” and physiological emotions with an inner evocation of their certain personal orientations; and (2) The Situated Self in Public II, which amounts to a stream of their cognitive process (situational monitoring and deliberation) and behavioral tendencies for their situational self-management in the wake of their emotional arousal in the situation. Of my respondents, there were a large group of people who had been mainly positioned to take the role of one of the bystanders (or onlookers) during the time of that public encounter in the city. Thus, they happened to observe it at a short or long distance, being usually unengaged in any interaction with someone directly or indirectly involved in it. From the perspective of these bystanders, this chapter aims to examine this second phase of the situated self, namely, The Situated Self in Public II. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J.-H. Oh, A Public Encounter in New York City, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30964-9_5

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For one of the bystanders while observing or facing it, these two distinct phases of the situated self are concatenated with each other on the occurrence of their emotional arousal that is also the lever to enter themselves automatically from the phase of The Situated Self in Public I to that of The Situated Self in Public II. As in one of the victims (or targets) who met an unanticipated public event in the city (see Chap. 4), each of these bystanders, who had also observed or faced a surprising public occasion in the city, laid their situational emotions as an indefeasible signal for themselves to unscramble or recalibrate their own situational circumstance, including some practical options for their own situational management. To put it differently, the evocation of their situational emotions became an important inner momentum for their self-determination or their self-­ indetermination of what to think over and/or act at certain moments. Furthermore, their self-decision for their situational management hinged upon how they had conceived of the physical and situational setting of that public event, including their situational placement as one of the bystanders at the time.2 In these respects, all these bystanders can be classified into one of the five bystander groups: situational observers, situational stayers, situational regulars, situational avoiders, and situational participants. What is important here is that this second phase of the situated self, also known as The Situated Self in Public II, is largely similar among those members in the same bystander group in various aspects of their situational positions, their inner operation or pause of “the reflexive consciousness,” and their subsequent behavioral tendencies in the wake of their emotional experience, which was triggered by their unanticipated observation of a problematic public event in New York City. The first group of bystanders, called situational observers, were, to a certain extent, reflective subjects who didn’t attempt to take any sort of behavioral reaction for their own situational management during the whole time of that problematic event. With particular emotions rising up at a sudden moment of it and lingering constantly at the time, situational observers were conscious of the situational state of their own and the situational activities of the others directly or indirectly involved in it. In turn, they were generally sharp situational inspectors. Then, not all of them were going to reach the high level of “the reflexive consciousness” until the situational occasion was finally ended. In addition to their cognitive activation of situational monitoring, the connotation of “the reflexive consciousness” from their own stance is also required to embrace their very judicious and careful judgment (or deliberation) in order to equip themselves with a coping strategy and then with their mindful readiness for a

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behavioral reaction at one moment of it. However, not many of them were ready to adapt to or readjust to the situation with their mindful determination of any coping behavior. On the other hand, most of them fell short of this part of their cognitive activity (e.g., a deliberate evaluation) during the entire time of it. The main reason for this is because they took it as less relatively challenging, dangerous, or less serious enough to generate themselves this high level of human cognition. Nonetheless, though rare, a few of these situational observers, for instance, had actually activated both of situational monitoring and evaluative judgment to deal with it. Then, there is one thing that is commonly shared among many bystanders, including some situational observers, to a greater or lesser degree. That is a set of their situational thoughts on the behaviors of someone directly involved in it (e.g., its assailants or initiators). This aspect of their mental functioning, which can be also understood as the operation of self-introspection, is independent of what is already known as their situational-­ centered aspect of “the reflexive consciousness.” As a matter of fact, whether the situational acts of its assailant(s) against its victim(s), actual or potential, had been rightful or not, or appropriate or not, was the core of their situational self-introspection, which has no direct bearing on their situational adaptation or management.3 Such happening of self-­ introspection during the situational event, or after its termination, was one of the marked characteristics from some of the bystanders who were not in direct confrontation with the situational actors (e.g., the assailants, the helpers, the victims, or the beneficiaries). Overall, in their own world, this domain of their self-consciousness is the reconfirmation process, or cognitive reassurance, of their particular personal orientations (e.g., no harm, liberty, goodwill, or social norms) that have been already evoked, impulsively or suddenly, in themselves at the relatively beginning period of their situational encounter, that is, in the phase of The Situated Self in Public I.4 The second group of bystanders were situational stayers. Like situational observers, they didn’t attempt to take any appropriate action—for example, a defensive, prudent, or protective one for either themselves or another there—to deal with the matter of their unanticipated public encounter in the situation. But, they were not in the better shape than situational observers in the area of subjective consciousness (or cognitive process) at the time, either. The point here is not to indicate that they were completely devoid of their personal ability to monitor the situational development owing to their overwhelming emotions at the time. Without doubt, they were cautious situational inspectors. Despite this fact, they were personally impaired in the other part of subjective consciousness,

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that is, their conscious judgment (or cognitive deliberation) required for their proper situational self-management. Their personal trouble in this part of self-cognition could happen when the situation became more aggravated between the persons directly involved in it or when it turned toward another direction that could be hard for themselves to avoid or escape, like a possibility of becoming themselves as the next target from its offenders (or initiators). In a word, situational stayers were a sort of situational onlookers with their lack of both conscious deliberation and proper behavioral reaction. The rest of bystanders were the same or different types of situational actors. More specifically, they can be further sorted out into the three other groups. At first, situational regulars were one of these three bystander groups. Even if their situational encounter became the prime cause of their emotional arousal—mostly negative emotions—the occurrence, or their observation, of such an unexpected public event didn’t influence a change of their public routines. Indeed, they behaved customarily as if nothing had happened. This doesn’t mean that their situational behavior can be a kind of impulsive reaction. On the contrary, their behavioral choice or display at the time was their bodily presentation of one of their prudent or defensive maneuvers in order to deal with it by themselves wisely and calmly. Such behavioral orientation of these situational regulars was made possible as they were individually a reflexive subject who monitored and evaluated the people directly involved in it and its situational development. As a whole, situational regulars took on a reflective stance that also helped them to choose their best course of action during the situation. Another group of situational actors were situational avoiders. As usual, a set of defensive or impulsive behaviors were characteristic of their situational self-­management. Since their situational encounter had resulted in some intense emotions as a great pressure on themselves, they tended to become instant or automatic actors to manage it by themselves. However, their behavioral response in the situation was not completely detached from the operation of their subjective consciousness about it and the people directly or indirectly involved in it. Actually, they monitored the situational process of the public event in sight after emotional arousal, to a greater or lesser degree. Nonetheless, what had been missing in the aspect of their cognitive functioning at the time was their deliberate appraisal and inner decision that amount to a more reasonable way to cope with it astutely. For those reasons, their situational consciousness and management was almost identical to that of each of the victims who were overall labeled as situational escapers in Chap. 4.

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Lastly, situational participants were the third group of situational actors, as well as the fifth group of bystanders. Initially, they all witnessed either the occurrence of an unanticipated event or its situational process that had taken place in one of the New York City public spaces. While observing or facing it, though unexpectedly and not directly, some emotions—negative or positive, or both—arose inside them. Eventually, their emotions drove their own participation (or involvement) in its situational process or soon after it ended. In fact, they participated in it with the aim of supporting the persons in danger or the persons acting out with goodwill (or benevolence), or otherwise, reacted against the stranger (or a handful of strangers) who attacked another innocent person (or a group of people), or who threatened a person (or a handful of persons) there without any good reason. For instance, some of them approached the victims (or the targets) only to console the latter after its termination. Then, to some situational participants, their behavioral reaction would be virtually spontaneous and unplanned in nature without taking on any sort of a reflective stance. But to some others, their situational behavior toward the assailants or the victims came up with their subjective consciousness that represents either or both of their situational monitoring about the people directly involved in it and their cognitive deliberation in consideration of some of their own behavioral plans. In comparison, their situational involvement (or interaction) with the assailants or the victims, or both, is what distinguishes them from both situational regulars and situational avoiders. In short, this chapter aims to explore the essence (or entity) of the situated self, which is set in its second phase of The Situated Self in Public II from the angle of one of the bystanders who experienced an unanticipated public event in New York City. To that end, below I will go into detail about some self-reported cases that are typical of each of the five bystander groups—situational observers, situational stayers, situational regulars, situational avoiders, and situational participants, respectively.

Situational Observers The first group of bystanders (onlookers or passersby) were situational observers. Although an unanticipated public encounter had caused the elicitation of some intense emotions in themselves, it didn’t cause themselves to take any sort of situational action to deal with it or someone directly involved in it. Table  5.1 presents the self-reported cases of the situational observers in accordance with each of the seven main themes.

Argument

Threatening

Shouting

Taking picture

Loud scream

Scolding

Yelling

Helping a hand Male

49

60

10

14

15

18

15

16

36

39

3

Public racism

Public racism

Public racism

Public rudeness Public rudeness Public rudeness Public rudeness Public kindness

Racist remarks

Racist remarks

Shouting

Threatening

15

Female

Female

Female

Male

Female

Female

N/A

Female

Female

Female

Male

Female

Fighting

11

Gender

Public harassment Public harassment Public harassment Public harassment Public racism

Issues

ID

Themes

Table 5.1  Situational observers

Asian

White

White

Hispanic

African American White

Asian

N/A

Other

White

Asian

White

Asian

35–49

18–24

18–24

35–49

18–24

25–34

18–24

N/A

18–24

18–24

18–24

18–24

18–24

Demographics Age Race groups

Events Place

2019/October Subway platform 2019/ Subway December train N/A Subway platform N/A Subway train 2020/ Subway February platform 2019/Spring Subway train 2018/Summer Subway train N/A Subway train N/A Subway train N/A Subway train N/A Subway train 2020/ Subway February train 2020/ Subway November station

Year/season

Strangers

2 p.m.

Morning rush hour In the morning In the afternoon N/A

Man and woman Multiple people Mother and daughter Mother and son Multiple people

6 or 7 Men p.m. 7:30 a.m. Man and woman In the Mother and morning father In the Multiple afternoon people In the Men afternoon In the Men morning In the Multiple afternoon people N/A

Time

Shock

Anger

Anger

Annoyance

Shock

Shock

Shock

Anger

Anger

Shock

Shock

Fear

Shock

Fear

Discomfort

Anger

Anxiety

Anger

Shock

Fear

Emotions

Sympathy

Pity

Anger

Helping a hand Female

Speech

Fighting

Car accident

Altercation

Altercation

Smoking on the Male train

72

9

11

16

1

5

3

Female

Female

Male

Female

Female

Helping a hand Female

64

Gender

Public kindness Public kindness Public exhibition Public exhibition Public exhibition Public conversation Public conversation Public filthiness

Issues

ID

Themes

African American

African American Hispanic

White

Asian

Asian

Hispanic

Other

18–24

18–24

18–24

25–34

18–24

18–24

35–49

18–24

Demographics Age Race groups

2019/ November 2020/March

N/A

2018

2019/Spring

2011/ September 2019/Spring

N/A

Year/season

Subway train Subway train Subway train

Subway train Subway station Subway train Subway train The road

Events Place

In the morning Afternoon rush hour In the morning N/A

5 p.m.

In the morning In the morning 4 p.m.

Time

Men

Two men

Multiple people Two men

Multiple people Men

Multiple people Man

Strangers Fear

Shock

Fear

Anxiety

Fear

Fear

Anger

Fear

Annoyance

Gratitude

Disgust

Annoyance Anger

Shock

Emotions

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However, its situational circumstance they were individually positioned at the time quite differed from person to person. Despite this fact, all the different situational settings for this group of situational observers can be widely classified into three categories. The first is the situational environments that some of them were positioned relatively in a safe zone. The general features of these situational settings are their personal capabilities to observe it and to keep some physical distance from those people directly involved in it, as well as either their situational sense of personal security (or safety) that would be unlikely to be soon invaded or breached from its initiators (or assailants) or their situational sense that its initiators wouldn’t do any harm against them. Indeed, such a feeling of their personal security or insecurity is merely one kind of their emotional experience to transpire at the very moment when they were encountered with its initiator(s). However, those in this first category would reveal their lack of conscious deliberation due to their strong negative emotions caused by their unexpected observation of the public event that took place or that kept going on. But, there exists a subtle difference in the aspects of their situational cognition that can be generally divided into two units. Upon the state of their emotional arousal in the situation, the first component of their situational cognition consists merely in their inner operation of situational monitoring itself. For example, one of my respondents, an Asian woman aged 18–24, saw a couple of men fighting each other on one of the D-line subway trains that just arrived at the platform of the train station where she had stood. She could watch this unusual scene inside that train before stepping on to it. What she observed over on the train was violent acts between two male riders. Soon, she felt a great shock and fear. While still standing on the subway platform, she further monitored the situational progress of their brawl: “There was someone already on the train trying to stop them from fighting. After a minute or two, they stopped fighting, but they kept yelling at each other.” Suddenly, the moment for the close of this public occasion came: “They kept yelling even though one already walked out of the train onto the station platform and up the stairs.” In this case of her self-reported account, any real action to cope with it by herself was unnecessary. For some situational observers, their emotional elicitation because of their unexpected observation of the public occasion led themselves to activate another form of their situational cognition that makes up both situational monitoring and self-introspection. While observing its situational process, their self-introspection is their internal thinking time about the

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rightfulness or wrongfulness or the appropriateness or inappropriateness of someone’s behaviors directly toward another there. It should be noticed that this mental aspect of situational rumination has no bearing on their cognitive deliberation (e.g., an evaluative judgment) that also pertains closely to their situational plans to manage it on their own. A case in point was the public experience of one respondent, a white man aged 18–24, who had observed the verbal condemnations of a female rider against a male rider on the subway train one day. This public event she observed had happened as the latter had taken some pictures of the former without her consent. My respondent also felt mixed feelings of shock, anger, and sympathy because that male rider had her photos taken rudely. He kept on monitoring its situational process: “This man kept apologizing, but wouldn’t delete her pictures he already took. She started tearing up and ragingly demanding him to delete the photos.” My respondent also explained the root cause of his emotional shock and anger at the time: “Invading others” privacy without consent, as well as acting like he himself was innocent, shocked and angered me.” That public event ended as soon as they got off the train at the next station. In fact, during the entire time of that public occasion, he was merely one of the bystanders who continued to sit watching them without any interaction with either of them. In another self-reported case, one respondent, an Asian woman aged 18–24, witnessed a kind of public racism against a few subway riders of Asian background in appearance. The start of this public event was: “There was someone yelling racist slurs against Asians … I was sitting on the subway with my back towards them.” Although she had been comfortably sitting a little bit away from some people directly involved in it, she had the feeling of shock suddenly at the occurrence of such public hatred targeting random Asians. Since then, she continued paying attention to how it would go: “An old, white lady was yelling back and insulting the racist person openly. When the racist man yelled back at her, she said, ‘That’s right. Turn your attention towards me.’” At the same time, her mind was also fraught with some serious thinking: “There’s us and then there’s them … I never know how a white person might receive or interact with me.” However, she was totally out of mind with regard to any form of her own direct reaction toward the racist man. Besides, there was no further statement of how that public occasion finally ended. The second broad category of the situational settings for some situational observers is their situational placements at the time of the public

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event, such as either observing the people directly involved in it that occurred merely for a very short period of time or observing it that was already over. For them in the situation, they were not in real danger, but they still could feel some negative emotions that further motivated themselves to monitor its situational process for a while. For example, one respondent, a white man aged 25–34, was one of the situational observers for the car accident that had already happened by leaving an unidentified pedestrian hit by a taxi driver. While seeing the aftermath of that road traffic incident, he felt mixed emotions such as his fear due to the scene that a pedestrian was lying on the ground and his feeling of gratitude after finding the person hit alive. With these ambivalent emotions felt, he stood seeing the physical site of the incident for a while at a little distance from it: “I stayed calm. I did not interfere … Police came, and people gathered to witness the accident.” Another case in point is an unanticipated public experience from my respondent, a Hispanic woman aged 35–49, who headed for her school near the World Trade Center in the morning on September 11, 2011. At the subway stop ahead of her destination station, she heard a loud scream: “A homeless person ran into my train and screamed, ‘There’s an attack,’ and got out of the subway after moving back and forth several times on it.” This surprising visit and thundering scream of that homeless person made her morning commute feel really uncanny and unpleasant: “I was annoyed and a little angry at him for saying such a crazy stuff.” When she looked around after that man had left the train hastily, she could also detect some passengers’ facial expressions similar to what she sensed to him. The third broad category of situational settings applies to a subgroup of situational observers who actually activated their subjective consciousness of both situational monitoring and deliberation to cope with the public event they observed or faced. In general, in addition to situational monitoring, this second aspect of their situational consciousness—that is, cognitive deliberation—that considers some tactics for their situational management is what generally distinguishes them from the situational observers of the first two categories. For them, this cognitive appraisal on the elicited event and the people involved in it has something to do with their inner feeling of anxiety or fear that they might be also a next possible target of the assailant(s). For example, one respondent, a white woman aged 18–24, caught sight of the public encounter one afternoon between a homeless man and some riders on the Q train, including a few teenagers who played loud music and danced excitedly together. She felt cold shock

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and anxiety at the time when the homeless man had attempted to threaten many riders standing on it: “These teenagers danced with music turning on loudly, and it caused the homeless man to wake up. He began to act aggressively towards all the passengers. He got close into the people’s faces and was spewing hateful words and racial and religious slurs … I experienced a shock and anxiety during the time.” She kept watching over the homeless man and the other riders standing close to him: “He continued targeting some passengers individually and was becoming very offensive. But a few passengers came to the defenders of those targeted riders … They were telling the man to calm down.” As she assessed its situational process that could become even worse, she made up her mind in order to cope with it: “I appraised the situation as potentially threatening and dangerous … I had my guard up even more so. I also decided to get off at the next stop even though it wasn’t the station of my destination.” But, she stayed in the train as the situational crisis suddenly came to an end. Another relevant example was a public experience of my respondent, a racially unidentified woman aged 18–24. That problematic event she had unanticipatedly observed while riding a subway train was: “Out of nowhere, a young woman fell to the ground by the train doors … The friend she was with started panicking and tried to get her up. A few passengers on the train jumped in to help and check her pulse.” In the following way, she stated her affective state at that very moment when that passenger had suddenly fallen down to the floor: “At the time I was in shock because I was standing just a few feet away from her … When she fell to the floor, I was quite frightened and unsure of what to do.” On top of the inner dominion of such intense emotions, her visual perception and mind were fixed on its situational process: “Another woman opened a water bottle from her bag to put on her face … When she finally woke up, she started crying.” Moreover, there was an indication that this respondent thought of a behavioral plan seriously for the passenger facing the crisis in health: “The first thing I thought of was pressing the emergency button. Then, the train had already been stopped due to the delay. So, I didn’t think that some other people would likely step in to help her right away.” However, this respondent didn’t perform this specific mode of situational conduct until the female rider regained her consciousness: “I stood there very frightened honestly.” On the whole, most of situational observers were good monitors about the situational development and the people directly involved in the public event they had witnessed, under their experience of strong emotions at the

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time. But only a few of them considered their situational options to deal with it seriously or wisely. Nonetheless, another thing all of them had been common was that they were far from situational actors at the individual level.

Situational Stayers In general, there exist some similar points between both groups of bystanders, situational stayers, and situational observers. At first, situational stayers, like situational observers, were not situational performers in the aspect of behavioral reaction that represents a self-management for an unanticipated public event they observed or faced. Second, as in situational observers, the activation of careful situational monitoring, which comes inwardly after some intense emotions struck by their observation of it, is another feature of these situational stayers, as well. Third, appraising the acts of the others directly involved in it in the context of public morality or etiquette, which reflects their self-introspection over the situational circumstance, also holds true for some situational stayers. Moreover, like not many situational observers, some situational stayers were also the eye witnesses of giving a hand to someone by another there (e.g., public kindness). Table 5.2 presents all the self-reported cases of the situational stayers. However, there exist two broad types of situational contexts that make the features of situational stayers distinguishable clearly from those of situational observers. The first thing is that perceiving or feeling a real danger (e.g., physical, emotional, or psychological) for either themselves or someone else is quite a rarity to most of situational observers, but this warning was what some of situational stayers actually experienced while observing or facing it. Given this latter point, it could be nothing strange for themselves to suffer from some cognitive impairment that would damage their conscious appraisals regarding the people directly involved in it and its situational development. As an example, one respondent, a white woman aged 18–24, heard a male rider’s loud shouting toward a female rider standing next to him probably because of the latter’s talk on the phone on the subway train: “Some guy got very upset over a phone call and started to yell at an innocent woman.” As for her affective state, his open and loud expressions of anger and outrage put herself into the intense feelings of shock and fear. But, she continued watching his further situational move: “When I looked over, he was giving all of us nasty looks.” At the time, however, it was unthinkable for herself to come up with some ideas and/

6

27 Shouting

38 Touching/ hitting 8 Giving out food 13 Giving a hand 14 Giving a hand 30 Giving a hand 39 Giving a hand 63 Giving a hand

Public rudeness

Public rudeness

Public rudeness

Public kindness

Public kindness

Public kindness

Public kindness

Public kindness

Public kindness

12 Yelling

Public rudeness

Jesting

Female

16 Arresting

Female

Female

Female

Female

Female

Unidentified

Female

Female

Female

Female

Female

52 Evaluating

Public harassment Public crime

Gender

ID Issues

Themes

Table 5.2  Situational stayers

Asian

White

White

African American White

African American Asian

Asian

Other

White

Hispanic

Other

Demographics Race

18–24

18–24

35–49

18–24

18–24

18–24

18–24

18–24

18–24

18–24

18–24

18–24

Age groups

Events Place

Subway train 2018/July Subway train N/A Subway train Summer Subway train 2019/ Subway Spring train 2020/ Subway February train N/A Subway train 2020/ Subway February train 2018/ Subway Winter train 2013 Subway train N/A Subway train 2018 Subway train

Summer

Year/ season

In the afternoon Morning rush hour N/A

In the morning N/A

In the morning N/A

In the morning 12:30 p.m. In the morning In the morning N/A

Time

Multiple people Multiple people

Multiple people Multiple people Multiple people Men

Some teenagers Multiple people Man and woman Some teenagers Man and woman Men

Strangers

Fear

Fear

Shock

Fear

Confusion

Surprise

Anger

Shock

Anger

Shock

Shock

Anger

Emotions

(continued)

Helplessness

Relief

Fear

Shock

Impression

Fear

Confusion

18–24

White

18–24 18–24

Hispanic

Male

18–24

18–24

Age groups

Asian

White

Hispanic

Demographics Race

Female

Female

Gender

12 Running on Male the track 5 Smelling Female

66 Giving a hand 20 Giving out food 4 Arresting

Public kindness

Public panhandling Public exhibition Public exhibition Public filthiness

ID Issues

Themes

Table 5.2 (continued)

2020/ February 2020/ January

N/A

2020/ February N/A

Year/ season Subway train Subway train Subway pathway Subway track Subway train

Events Place

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

Time

Man

Multiple people Man and woman Multiple people Man

Strangers

Discomfort

Fear

Anger

Shock

Shock

Emotions

Fear

Comfort

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or to behave prudently or defensively for her situational self-management. She explained the reason: “I was so shocked that I was incapable of thinking of what to do next … I was totally engrossed in the thought that I shouldn’t be the next victim of his affront.” As another example that is of relevance, one respondent, a white woman aged 18–24, was one of the bystanders who saw an older man standing on the subway suddenly felt down on its floor during the morning rush hour. She was freezing with fear by the sight. Soon, his health condition was her only concern that had occupied her mind. Nonetheless, she merely fastened her eyes on him: “Someone gave him some water and a seat. He was thankfully okay after that.” She felt relieved after seeing that he seemed to be fine. During this short time of such an unusual public scene, she stood completely senseless, speechless, and motionless even though he was standing near her before his collapse: “I didn’t know how to react. I didn’t know if I should press the help button.” Another case in point is a public experience of one respondent, an African-American woman aged 18–24. Prior to the occurrence of that public event, her situational setting was: “The train was really packed because it was a rainy morning and all of the trains were delayed. People were getting annoyed and irritated … You were bound to get pushed by accident because of the fact that it was so many people.” Then, that problematic occasion happened in front of her: “A male rider got on the train and accidentally stepped on another male rider’s foot. The guy who had made the mistake apologized sincerely, but the one whom he had been stepped on slapped him harshly.” She stated the reason why this vulgar act of the other male rider had infuriated her at the time: “I was feeling angry because he had no right to put his hands on that guy. Mistakes could happen to anyone in situations like that.” With this intense feeling of anger, she continued to be concerned about this matter without being directly involved in it or taking any behavioral reaction for her own situational management: “I saw that the guy who had attacked the other one had no emotion whatsoever … I didn’t do anything, my silence in such a situation caused me to feel anger even to myself.” Since the male rider, who was the victim of this public encounter, didn’t react at all to his harasser, this public event ended right away. For some situational stayers, their situational contexts were something that they were felt to be far from any sign of danger to themselves or someone else there especially at the beginning stage of the public occasion or in the midst of it. However, they still found themselves remaining

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inactive until its complete termination as it triggered themselves to experience a bit of disorientation in their cognitive functioning for the situational assessment. For example, one respondent of gender nonbinary but Asian background set their eyes on the unusual activities of a small group of people on the subway train one morning: “When I was in the train, a nonprofit organization was giving out food for people who seem desperately to need it and asking some passengers on it to donate anything that they could help out others in need. Then, a person wanted to get an apple so that someone in the organization gave it to that person who asked for it.” To this respondent, such good will and conducts brought both the feeling of surprise and a good impression toward them. This public event continued: “A few stops later, a guy was asking for food and money because he was hungry. The person, who got the apple from the organization, gave the apple to the guy who was hungry.” Before all of its members got off the train, this respondent kept sitting on a seat as if nothing had happened. But in their inner world, they were deeply moved by this unanticipated public occasion that came to support each other. Another example that is suitable here is a self-reported account of one respondent, a white woman aged 18–24, who described her personal experience on a very crowded subway train one day. The public event she observed at the very moment of her entrance into that train was the weird scene of a man who had fallen in a deep sleep and the passengers’ very similar facial expressions and bodily gestures about his inappropriate public deportment on such a public space where so many people use on a regular basis: “There was a homeless man sleeping on this very crowded subway train, and what’s more, because of this, his nasty smells were all over it, making the ride very unpleasant for me and all the other passengers, of course.” The uncanny posture of and a strong odor from that homeless man also caused her a great deal of discomfort. Then, her unceasing feeling of discomfort led her to the situational monitoring of some exchanges of body languages and facial expressions among some riders: “Some passengers made eye contacts with the others and awkwardly laughed and winked one another at the whole sadness of their same experience.” For her part, until the train arrived at her destination station, she kept standing still near the door with that constant uneasy feeling at her heart. In brief, a group of situational stayers can be individually viewed as a kind of situational non-movers who were caught up in some strong

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emotions as well as in a state of their reflective thought not fully working while observing or facing such an unanticipated public event in New York City.

Situational Regulars As for the situational management that broadly covers both aspects of cognitive awareness and proper behavioral response, the group of situational regulars are generally comparable to that of vigilant agents, that is, a distinctive group of the victims (or targets) whose features were addressed in Chap. 4. Although the level of their emotional experience during the observation of a problematic public event in the city might have been relatively less intense than that of the comparable vigilant agents, situational regulars also underwent some high level of emotional strains during the situational encounter. With their inner experience of such emotions as shock, fear, or discomfort, situational regulars were inclined to become both reflexive subjects and prudent actors in order to cope with it on their own. Table  5.3 presents all the self-reported cases of the situational regulars. Indeed, their inner stream of situational consciousness while cautiously observing it—or still in the face of it in some cases—was generally working well in both domains of “the reflexive consciousness,” that is, the situational monitoring and evaluative judgment (or deliberation) where this latter part of their mental functioning is closely tied to their situational management. Likewise, they were also kinds of situational actors who continued to behave in the normal or wise fashion in the aspects of their facial expressions (e.g., indifference, coolness) and/or their bodily presentation or movement (e.g., self-absorbing involvement, body gestures, or bodily practices like walking at the same pace they used to do in normal times). Moreover, some situational contexts of their public encounter—for example, risk perceptions, a physical distance or a less likelihood of interpersonal interactions, or their personal sense of safety overall—also drove some of them at one moment to start monitoring and appraising various acts of those directly involved in it from the angle of human morality or community life, which had little to do with their situational management. Below are three relevant self-reported cases. The first case in point is a public experience of one respondent, a racially unidentified man aged 18–24, who witnessed a problematic interaction between two male passengers on the crowded subway train: “The two men kept arguing back and forth with each other and eventually led to

45 Fighting

Public harassment Public harassment Public rudeness Public rudeness Public panhandling Public exhibition Public exhibition Public conversation

Male

Other

Male

Asian

Female Asian

Female Hispanic

6

Attacking

Female African American

Selling Male Asian drug 10 Disturbing Female Hispanic

6

42 No mask wearing 48 No mask wearing 5 Arguing

Events Place

Subway train 18–24 2020/ On the February street 18–24 2020 Subway train 25–34 2020/ On the October street 18–24 2020/ Subway Spring train 18–24 2019/ Subway November train 18–24 N/A Subway train 18–24 2020/ Store March

18–24 N/A

Gender Demographics Age Year/ Race groups season

47 Disturbing Female Hispanic

ID Issues

Themes

Table 5.3  Situational regulars

4 p.m.

N/A

Emotions

Fear Two men Shock

N/A

Discom fort

Delight

Fear

Multiple Discomfort people Multiple Anger Discom people fort Man Discomfort

Two men Discomfort

Strangers

Afternoon Two men Shock rush hour 6 p.m. Man Shock

In the morning 3 p.m.

N/A

N/A

Time

Anger

Frustration

146  J.-H. OH

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pushing and shoving.” This troubling occasion there caused him considerable discomfort. But, he further undertook the situational monitoring on both men and some passengers surrounding them: “These two strangers were making heavy eye contacts with everyone in the train with an expression of strong disgust in their faces as if they wanted to be hostile to anyone who interferes.” At the same time, he thought of a good situational plan: “As things got heated between the two strangers, I just made sure not to get too close in case the fight breaks out around me.” In his account about any situationally defensive response in deed, what he had actually acted at the time for his self-protection was: “I did move my bag closer to myself and I muted my music for some moments to listen to the arguing.” Aside from this immediate issue of risk management, the lack of human wisdom was one thing that had grabbed his mind momentarily in the course of this eliciting event: “The easiest thing to do was to clarify a misunderstanding between the two people, and simply to say to the person who bumped into the passenger like ‘I am sorry.’” Secondly, one respondent, a Hispanic woman aged 18–24, described her unanticipated public experience that had occurred during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. She was on the subway train an early morning in August of 2020: “There were so many people on top of each other. Some of them were wearing mask, but some others sat or stood without any face covering … I did not see any of MTA workers reminding the passengers that they should wear their face mask on it.” She briefly stated her feelings at that particular time and place: “I was very frustrated and uncomfortable because I had to go to work not by choice.” She further looked up at the facial expressions of some passengers: “I could tell that I was not the only person uncomfortable because some people were trying to separate and keep social distance, and others decided to get off the train.” What’s more, she was seriously thinking of a situational maneuver to deal with her troubling scene: “My plan was to simply ask some people near me to put their mask on.” But instead of asking them to wear a mask, she behaved actually in a different way: “I quickly move into the next empty train cart.” Let me illustrate one more example that suits this section of situational regulars. The case is the self-reported account of an unanticipated public matter that one respondent, a Hispanic woman aged 18–24, experienced on the subway train on her way back home. With her entry to it one day, there was the situational event to grab her attention: “There were some people performing in it … They used the holding poles for their public

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performance.” This unanticipated public event suddenly aroused some negative feelings in her: “I felt fear and discomfort on my commute back home.” Unavoidably, she could not help but monitor their public performance with her vigilance. As for the aspect of her situational management, she also spent some moments of it thinking of some situational plans: “I was thinking to switch my train cart into another, but I also thought that it was not worth moving away since I was pretty sure that they would go onto its next carts to perform wildly.” In fact, she didn’t act on any of what she had thought. What she had instead behaved cautiously was: “I continued to listen to my music with keeping my eyes on them, just as I made a little more distance from them.” During this situational encounter, she also had thought about the sort of public morality and manners: “How come they don’t perform in less crowded public spaces like a park?” In brief, situational regulars were both situational thinkers and actors who can be overall characterized as calm situational inspectors, deliberate planners, and prudent actors in the midst of the observation of such a problematic public event in a near or far distance.

Situational Avoiders The group of situational avoiders, as compared with the other bystander groups, were prompt actors in response to their inner emotions that were essentially rooted in their unanticipated observation of the problematic public event. For situational regulars, as stated above, their emotional experience that stemmed from it or the people directly involved in it didn’t much disturb a delicate balance between their situational consciousness and their subsequent behavioral response to cope with it on their own. Thus, their subjective consciousness often helped make the way for their situational lines of action. However, this point was not quite true for situational avoider. For each of them, a behavioral reaction for their own situational management became a top priority over their conscious deliberation while observing or facing it. This doesn’t mean that they stopped carrying out their monitoring on its situational process. In other words, they, under a great emotional pressure, performed a visual inspection of its subsequent situational development usually for a moment though. Besides, most of them also did a sort of quick situational appraisal that had no bearing on their coping behavior. To put it clearly, most of them were indeed instant or instinctive actors to deal with it by themselves under the strong pressure of their negative emotions. Table 5.4 presents all the self-reported cases of the situational avoiders.

Hispanic Hispanic

Male

Female

Female

Female

Female

17 Killing

21 Fighting

Vulgar remarks 37 Loudness

Bleeding

Being naked

5

3

9

Female

Hispanic

Female

Hispanic

Hispanic

Hispanic

White

White

25–34

18–24

18–24

18–24

18–24

50–64

18–24

18–24

Demographics Age Race groups

Female

Public racism Public crime Public crime Public crime Public rudeness Public rudeness Public exhibition Public exhibition

Gender

13 Racist remarks 8 Assault

ID Issues

Themes

Table 5.4  Situational avoiders Events Place

Subway train 2017/ Subway Summer train 2019/ Subway February train 2018/Spring Subway train N/A MTA bus 2020/ MTA February bus Summer On the street N/A On the street

2016

Year/season

N/A

In the afternoon N/A

N/A

23 p.m.

2:30 p.m.

N/A

N/A

Time

Man

Multiple people Man

Woman

Three men Three men Three men Two men

Strangers

Disgust

Confusion

Shock

Fear

Shock

Shock

Fear

Shock

Anger

Shock

Fear

Fear

Shock

Anger

Emotions

Discomfort

Distress

Sadness

Sadness

Discomfort

Discomfort

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Comparatively speaking, the main characteristics of situational avoiders are not much different from those of situational escapers who were known as a group of public victims (targets), as stated in Chap. 4. Nonetheless, any comparison between them might require further information about the specificity and intensity of the public event each of them met by chance, their situational placements on it (e.g., one of the victims or one of the bystanders), their emotional states, the presence and the involvement of some others at the time, and so on. Below are three self-reported cases about how some situational avoiders as one of the bystanders at the time felt on, kept track of, and behaved on it. The first example was from the self-reported account of one respondent, a Hispanic woman aged 18–24, who observed a public disturbance caused by an unfamiliar woman on the bus. Once she had entered the front door of the bus, the problematic event was already under way at the time: “The bus was full, and it was during the rush hour. Once on board, a woman, who was carrying a cart, started calling the bus riders vulgar names and pushing them with her cart.” Her strange and bad-mannered behaviors aroused mixed feelings of shock and fear to her. As she stood up very closely at the back of that angering woman, she could further watch her expressive acts against some bus riders as well: “She did not stop shouting during her bus ride and kept trying to hurt some bus riders, even when some other passengers there were trying to help her.” Because of her unceasing coarse words, untidy body gestures, and violent acts, her feelings of fear and distress continued unabated. Then, what she had acted instantly was: “When the bus driver opened both the front and back doors at the next bus station, I quickly got off through its front door and hurried to get on it at its back door.” As another relevant example, my respondent, a white man aged 50–64, witnessed a horrific scene on the running subway train and outside of it one afternoon in February 2019. While he was sitting on a seat in that running train, it was unbelievable what he saw: “A fight broke out in my subway train after the train pulled into the station. Two guys were beating one male rider up. When the beaten guy exited the train out to try to get away from them, they knocked him to the platform where this bizarre physical attack to him ensued by them. During this public mayhem, one guy finally pulled out a 9  mm semi-automatic pistol and executed that man lying on the platform with a series of shots fired.” The moment he saw this appalling murder to someone and heard the sound of gunshots out, he felt immense shock and fear. With the feeling of his strong fear as

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well as with himself still sitting unmoving, he took his quick glance at his surroundings: “All the other passengers ran the opposite way and ducked behind a garbage can.” He also reacted instinctively: “I ran like everyone else in the opposite direction.” This public occasion finally ended without hurting himself and all the other passengers. But a deep sadness about the victim soon filled his heart. One more example that seems to be relevant here is about the self-­ reported case that one respondent, a white woman aged 18–24, witnessed the occurrence of a racially motivated crime on the subway train. That public event she had observed inevitably was: “Two seemingly African-­ American men started screaming hateful and anti-Semitic comments to a visibly Sephardi Jew on it. Indeed, this matter lasted for more than two stops.” With the disclosure of her ethnic identity as a Jewish young adult, she expressed her own feelings at the time: “I felt discouraged, scared, and angry that this was really occurring … I was shocked that some people still held these anti-Semitic beliefs and felt confident to scream out to someone different than them in appearance coarsely on such a busy rush-hour subway.” Due to these intense feelings, she behaved swiftly without considering any behavioral plan and with help of her companions: “I and my friends got off the train immediately as it stopped at the next station that was not our destination.” In sum, for situational avoiders, their situational thoughts and behavioral reaction were not aligned well with each other for various reasons. Nonetheless, their emotions that were still running high at the time also became one of the main driving forces of why they took their prompt behavioral reaction to cope with it instinctively.

Situational Participants For situational participants, the change of their situational position happened mostly in the midst of an unanticipated public event they observed or faced, or in a few cases, even after it was ended. While having observed it or while faced with it, usually at its very beginning, they tended to remain unmoved as one of the bystanders and then turn to participate in it at one moment, namely, their interaction with some people directly involved in it (e.g., the initiators or their targets, or both) with or without verbal communication. A turning point of their shifting placement in it, or after its termination, came immediately after their experience of emotional arousal. For some of them, such intense emotions naturally led to their

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situational monitoring that has no connection to any behavioral reaction. Before their situational position shifted suddenly into a sort of participant role by themselves at the time, however, it was very rare that they would deliberate on a careful plan to deal with it for the sake of their own safety or for other reasons. For others, the personal state of their strong emotions made themselves actually incapable of monitoring its situational development, not to mention their conscious deliberation like an evaluative judgment. Thus, the stream of their situational cognition that can be likely to ensue after their emotional arousal was completely halted when they switched their situational role from that of one of the bystanders to that of one of the participants. Here, the nature of their participation role can be further classified into three types: an involvement with its initiator (or a group of its initiators), an involvement with its target (or a group of its targets), and an involvement with both parties. For each of these three participation modes in the situation, a couple of examples are described below, respectively. Table  5.5 presents all the self-reported cases of the situational participants. First of all, some situational participants were involved with the initiator (or the handful of initiators or assailants) of an unanticipated public event they observed as one of the bystanders at its outset. Thus, they interacted only with its initiator(s), not its target(s), though very short. What’s more, their situational involvement with its initiator(s) means a set of their behavioral reactions that include facial expressions, bodily gesture, and/or verbal communication. Basically, they were engaged with its initiator(s) because the latter created a positive atmosphere in the situation from their own perspective. Let me provide two specific cases for this topic. The first case was the public experience of one respondent, an Asian man aged 18–24. Prior to the occurrence of a public event he witnessed in the city, his situational setting was: “I was waiting for a subway train in Manhattan, and there were a bunch of homeless people sleeping or just laying down in the corner near the turnstiles that people should swipe in with their MetroCard for entrance.” Then, the public occasion he set his eyes on took place: “Some people were carrying old jackets and thick sweaters and gave them to the homeless people who were very clearly in need of these extra clothing.” This became a shifting momentum in his situational feelings from sadness and discomfort to deep gratitude. At a moment of its situational process, he approached those making good acts there to express his appreciation: “I simply showed them gratitude by saying that what they did was very thoughtful.”

Gazing

Attempted assault Insulting

Pushing

Robbery

33

68

12

1

Public rudeness Public rudeness Public kindness Public kindness Public kindness

Helping

Jesting

Offering

5

7

10

Female

Male

Male

Rude behavior Female

Male

Male

Male

Female

Female

Female

Female

Female

Female

Gender

40

18

Public crime 15

Attempted assault Argument

Touching

24

70

Hitting

8

Public harassment Public harassment Public harassment Public harassment Public harassment Public racism Public crime

Issues

ID

Themes

Table 5.5  Situational participants

Hispanic

Hispanic

African American Asian

Asian

Hispanic

Asian

Asian

Hispanic

Asian

Hispanic

Asian

Asian

35–49

25–34

18–24

25–34

18–24

25–34

25–34

18–24

18–24

18–24

18–24

18–24

18–24

2013/May

2020/ January Spring

2019/July

2020/ January 2020/ January N/A

2020/ October N/A

2016/ Summer N/A

2015/May

N/A

Afternoon rush hour Morning rush hour N/A

5 a.m.

N/A

In the afternoon N/A

N/A

In the afternoon At night

Time

Subway N/A entrance Subway station In the afternoon On the street N/A

Subway train

Subway train

On the street

Subway train

Subway train

Store

N/A

MTA bus

Subway train

Subway train

Demographics Age groups Year/season Events Race Place

Man and woman Multiple people Young men Man and woman

Man and woman Man and woman Two women Man and woman Multiple people Two men

Man

Man and woman Man

Strangers

Gratitude

Shock

Gratitude

Anger

Anger

Excitement

Anger

Shock

Anger

Fear

Shock

Shock

Shock

Discomfort

kindness

Anger

(continued)

Happiness

Discomfort Sadness

Discomfort

Annoyance

Sympathy

Anger

Fear

Anger

Fear

Emotions

Helping

Giving up a seat Yelling

Performance

Performance/ mishap Performance

41

82

1

5

7

16

Offering

19

Public kindness Public kindness Public kindness Public panhandling Public exhibition Public exhibition Public exhibition

Issues

ID

Themes

Table 5.5 (continued)

Female

Female

Male

Female

Female

Male

Female

Gender

Hispanic

White

Hispanic

Asian

Hispanic

African American Asian

18–24

18–24

25–34

18–24

18–24

25–34

18–24

2019/ Summer N/A

2019/ December 2019/ December N/A

N/A

N/A

Subway train

At the pier

Subway train

Subway train

Subway train

Strangers

N/A

N/A

Multiple people Dancer

Man and woman Man and woman Afternoon Man and rush hour woman 11 p.m. Multiple people 10–11 p.m. Man

Time

In the evening Subway station N/A

N/A

Demographics Age groups Year/season Events Race Place

Discomfort

Shock

Awe

Shock

Discomfort

Kindness

Gratitude

Positivity

Delight

Gratitude

Fear

Emotions

Discomfort

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As another case in point, one respondent, a Hispanic man aged 25–34, caught sight of an unanticipated public event that was already under way on the running subway one day. He specified what it had been about: “It was a musician who was performing on the subway. He was playing jazz music with his saxophone. This individual seemed to be a young adult probably in his mid-20s … He didn’t really make any eye contact with other passengers during his performance.” Watching this public performance of an unidentified musician brought some positive emotions in him: “I felt totally in awe of his performance. I felt pretty grateful being able to listen to him play … I felt relaxed and entertained, as well.” Furthermore, the way he had reacted to the public performance of that unknown musician was: “I tipped him for his performance without making any eye contact with each other.” The second type of situational involvement (or participation) that a few of my respondents (i.e., a few of situational participants) experienced during their public encounter in the city was their direct interaction with the recipient(s)—or otherwise, the victim(s) or the potential target(s)—in the midst of it or after its termination. Thus, these situational participants had no direct interaction with the initiators (or assailants) in the course of it or even after its termination. Two specific cases relevant to this are as follows. The first example is a self-reported case in the theme of public harassment upon which one respondent, an Asian woman, experienced on the subway train one afternoon. Then, the problematic event that had occurred right in front of her was: “A man randomly attacked a woman sitting next to him … He used an empty tote bag to hit her.” This astonishing scene of his violence against the innocent woman evoked a lot of mixed emotions—shock, fear, discomfort, and sympathy—to him: “I was very shocked at his physical violence, and it happened so abruptly. I was very fearful that the man would also attack me or my friends. But I felt sorry and sympathetic for the woman, as well.” The situation was still not settled as the woman reacted to his violent behaviors: “The woman who had been attacked cursed the attacker very loudly and moved away from the man and walked quickly towards my friends and me.” When she had come near to her own seating area, a couple of things she had acted for this female victim was: “I allowed her to have my seat … I apologized to her and told her to stay safe.” Almost one half of the group of situational participants can be laid out into this third type of situational involvement that was about their engagement with both parties—the initiators and the targets. Most of them

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interacted with both parties at a moment of it, while a few of them continued to be engaged with either its targets (or victims) even after its complete termination. Below are four specific cases that can help us understand some different contexts and ways of their own situational involvement. The first self-reported case was a public experience of one respondent, an Asian man aged 18–24. His situational setting before the occurrence of the problematic event was: “I was on the subway to go to school … The time was around 7 a.m. and it was packed with many passengers.” The public event to which he caught his visual attention there was: “While I was standing, two people began to argue seriously. Like I said, it was very packed … It then began to escalate to a point where both stood up and were about to get physical.” This scene of public confrontation suddenly produced emotional provocation to him: “I was very angry, as was everyone else on the train … Witnessing something like it from this early morning was just very annoying to me.” At last, his emotional frustration became the cause of his active intervention in the middle of their public squabble: “I yelled at them by telling both of them to cut it out.” Then, whether or not his intervention was somewhat effective was unclear because he had to get off the train at the next station. The second self-reported case was a public experience of one respondent, an Asian woman aged 18–24, which happened when she and her friend had walked down a crowded but dim lighted street at night one day. Before crossing the street, they were encountered with an unexpected public occasion: “I saw a person just standing there … He was standing as if he was waiting someone there. As we walked past him, he tried to reach my friend”s hand. Spontaneously, what I did at the time was that I grabbed her quickly away.” At that same moment, she felt anger rising inside her so that she reacted expressively against him: “I cursed that person, ‘F**k you, do not touch her.’” While running quickly away from him, she felt worried about whether he would follow them. Fortunately, he didn’t. In a long distance away from the street where that incident happened, she soothed her friend who also expressed thankfulness toward her, in response: “I was praised and thanked by my friend a lot. She said that she always felt safe around me.” The third example that is of relevance in this subject was a self-reported case experienced by one respondent, an Asian man aged 25–34, who had witnessed a man committing a violent robbery on a woman at the subway

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station. Prior to the occurrence of this problematic event, the public settings that he and both of the crime victim and offender had been situationally placed were: “I was going to my work. And I was waiting for the train. I saw a woman entering the station and sitting down a few benches away from me … She was talking over phone with someone else … I also was using my phone. After a few moments, I saw a man coming to the station, and he was looking around suspiciously. Then, he tried to walk slowly towards the woman.” Then soon, the problematic event took place: “Once he had approached her, he punched the lady at least 5–6 times and snatched her purse bag and a golden locket on her neck.” At that moment, he felt a surge of anger at his violent behaviors to that innocent woman. At the same time, he also displayed his anger against this attacker: “I yelled at him with rage.” Soon after, he finally stopped attacking her and swiftly ran away. What he acted next very swiftly was his 911 call as well as an ambulance call for her. Since then, he approached her to give his hand: “I went to the lady who was totally in an unconscious state. I tried to move her slowly, but she still lent against the wall without being awake. I had a water bottle and dropped some on her face.” Later on, she could regain her consciousness with all the help from the ambulance staff who had at last arrived at the subway station. The last example was a self-reported case of one respondent, a Hispanic woman aged 18–24. In the summer of 2016, she was riding a city bus with her friend who seemed likely to resemble the famous pop singer, Rihanna. Then, the problematic event for them surfaced soon: “I was sitting in the bus, next to my friend … Suddenly, this strange person walked toward my friend and started looking straight into her eyes within almost a distance of one foot between their faces.” Seeing what he was intentionally doing to her itself brought the feelings of shock and fear in herself: “At the beginning, I was in shock because I wasn’t sure if my friend and this stranger knew each other. At some point, then I got scared because I didn’t know if he would attack us.” Eventually, her friend confronted him: “I was looking both faces simultaneously … My friend finally said, ‘What?’ She said again, ‘What are you looking at?’” Likewise, she also reacted against him by saying the same word her friend expressed out: “I repeated ‘What?’ after her.” As a consequence, their loud and bold defiance worked very well as he instantly got off the bus at the next stop.

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In brief, situational participants were a group of situational actors who interacted with either or both parties of people—for example, the initiators and the targets—directly involved in an unanticipated event they observed in one of the New York City public spaces. Their observation of it and their emotional arousal in the situation were generally an ulterior motive for their own involvement (participation or interaction) with either or both parties during its situational development and/or after its termination. Here, the scope of their involvement included their verbal expressions or behavioral displays, or both, against its assailants, or for either its initiators of good conduct or its recipients or its victims. From the perspective of those bystanders (onlookers or passersby) who observed or faced an unanticipated or problematic event in one of the New York City public spaces, this chapter has explored the essence (or entity) of the situated self—its constitution, nature, and situational development—in its second phase, known as The Situated Self in Public II. This second phase of the situated self illuminates both of the inner state of their personal world and the self-presentation of their own approach to it, both inwardly and outwardly, in the wake of their emotional arousal at the time, whereas The Situated Self in Public I is the first phase of the situated self that primarily reckoned their particular personal orientations in their situational nexus of human perceptions, the “nascent consciousness,” and physiological emotions, as stressed in Chap. 3. In general, this second phrase of the situated self represents the combination of the stream of their cognitive (or conscious) functioning and their situational management in deed in order to deal with it on their own. When they had observed it and the people directly involved in it, or when its situational processes had kept moving on, their emotional arousal—negative or positive, or both— became a principal drive for themselves to enter into this second phase of the situated self naturally. There were five different groups of bystanders in this phase of The Situated Self in Public II: situational observers, situational stayers, situational regulars, situational avoiders, and situational participants. By and large, their specific placement for one of these five bystander groups is linked to the situational synthesis of both their subjective state of mind (e.g., situational monitoring and deliberation) internally and their behavioral response externally. Comparatively speaking, a group of bystanders and a group of victims (see Chap. 4) were very similarly put in place in the

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key situational aspects of an unanticipated or problematic public event they observed or faced. Here, to some degree, a similar pair between a group of its bystanders and that of its victims was between situational observers and fractured agents, situational stayers and situational receptors, situational regulars and vigilant agents, situational avoiders and situational escapers, and situational participants and instinctive defenders, respectively. However, in this second phase of the situated self, the situational settings on such an unanticipated public event (e.g., physical distance, no direct involvement with its initiators) and its situational position as one of the bystanders overall made them distinguishable from the situational conditions of those people in their comparable victim groups who were unavoidably faced with its assailants (or initiators), in most cases, with a sense of their situational concerns about their own personal safety. Whether they were either one of the situational bystanders or one of the situational victims (or targets) during their unanticipated public encounter in the city, ultimately, their personal experience on both combined phases of the situated self at the time gives themselves an important clue to shape their present-time urban style in public—their current urban public outlooks (e.g., vigilance, attention to others, self-engagement, or friendliness) and urban public behaviors (e.g., facial expressions, posturing, or bodily movement)—that is indeed well embodied in their mind and body whenever they reappear into the New York City public spaces. This is the main subject of the next chapter.

Notes 1. As stated in footnote 1 in Chap. 4, the term the situated self is analogically tantamount to the “Dasein” (being there) of the self temporally with concern, as in Martin Heidegger’s Being and time (1962). 2. For example, their own situational settings can be the specific time and place that the problematic event happened, its main issues, the people directly or indirectly involved in it, and so forth. Moreover, their dominant situational positions (or placements) as one of the bystanders (or onlookers) include their situational presence at or after its occurrence, their perceived weightiness of the situational issues, their physical closeness with or remoteness from a stranger (or a group of strangers), and their situational emotions in strength and kind, whether it is negative or positive, and among others.

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3. Self-introspection is a part of the situated self, but it is distinguishable from the stream of their cognitive processes that are generally composed of two broad units: situational monitoring and careful deliberation. Thus, self-­ introspection is mainly focused on their situational contemplation on the public acts (e.g., moral issues or public manners) of somebody directly involved in it. One delicate difference between this notion of self-­ introspection and the term personal orientations is the fact that the latter is deeply grounded at the level of human intuition or sensation, which occurs automatically inside their personal world due to the multilayered absorption of their perception, “nascent consciousness,” and physiological emotions in the situation. 4. For more details, see Chap. 3.

Reference Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time. Harper & Row. (Original work published in 1927).

CHAPTER 6

A Personalized Public Style in New York City

Relatively long-term residents in New York City and many regular commuters to it have been individually equipped with their own compelling mindsets, bodily postures, and adaptive behaviors whenever they appear in its public spaces. The whole of these personal propensities of their public life in New York City is what I call their present-time urban style in public. Indeed, this term their present-time urban style in public represents all-­ embracing personal standards of their urban public outlooks (e.g., vigilance, indifference, tolerance) and urban public behaviors (e.g., self-involvement, civil inattention, physical or social distance), which are jointly and habitually working during their public life in the city at present. The fact of the matter is that this term is a unified but vague concept in terms of its sources. The reason is because it combines all of the explicit and implicit personal beliefs, knowledge, experiences, and practices they have developed for themselves throughout their entire life, including their own history of public life in New York City. Despite such complexity of this term, my argument here is that a part of their present-time urban style in public has already embraced their temporal, subjective experience of the situated self, that is, their particular public experience in New York City in the past. On the other hand, what is of great importance here is that their particular public experience in New York City—that is, the situated self— stays alive in their mind and body whenever they conduct their present or future public activities there.

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Our individual self—in a narrow sense, our urban public self in it—is the personhood who constantly “forms a trajectory of development from the past to the anticipated future” (Giddens, 1991, p. 75). In this light, our self of today is indeed characteristic of the thinker or the agent that is inseparable from our empirical self as “a Me of yesterday” that is metaphorically the case of the situated self (James, 1910, pp. 176–201). As the thinker or the agent, our individual self can appropriate some personal experiences with our abilities to reflect on it, to guide a future course of action, and to ensure personal identity and moral standards (Bandura, 2001; Markus, 1977). Especially, self-reflexivity is the main impetus for ourselves to organize our personal experience, here the situated self (Mead, [1934] 1962, p. 134). This human capacity of reflexivity is really at the heart of linking the situated self to their present-time urban style in public that is an important kind of character of their current urban public self to each of my respondents. What makes this nexus possible is through their “inner conversation” that grants them to encode, retain, and retrieve the whole or a substantial part of the situated self (Archer, 2003, 2007). These human qualities to encode, remember, and empower their past experience (e.g., the situated self ) in their personal world of today are often referred to as schemas or schemata as the plural word of schema (D’Aandrade, 1995; Mandler, 1984). By implication, for instance, self-schemas are a kind of mental representation constructed from the situated self, here known as the self’s subjective experience of an unanticipated event met by chance in one of the New York City public spaces (Rumelhart, 1980). In another sense, the connotation of schemas is “more than just a representation; it is also a processor of a special kind” (D’Aandrade, 1995; Mandler, 1984). Likewise, the scope of their self-schemas needs to be understood as “corporeal and affective as well as cognitive patterns” (Emirbayer & Mische, 1998, p. 963). Taken together, self-schemas from the angle of the situated self are their great potential of retrieving the whole or a substantial part of it in activating all their situational perceptions, cognitions, emotions, physiological sensations, postures, and behaviors at the present time when they reappear on its public spaces, when they interact with someone unknown to them there or when they encounter or observe a similar unanticipated event there once again. By and large, their present-time urban style in public has been shaped, to a greater or lesser degree, by their personal efforts of self-schematization (or their self-organization) toward the situated self.

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This term their present-time urban style in public largely consists of two distinct but closely related segments. Its first component is what I call urban public outlooks. What mainly constitutes urban public outlooks at the individual level is compelling personal mindsets, dispositions, and attitudes that are particularly tied to one’s public life in New York City. Subsequent to the situated self that is their never-to-be forgotten experience in one of its public spaces, my respondents tend to readjust their urban public self in the broad aspects of how to think, feel, or judge during their return to its public spaces or in a case when they may meet another unexpected event there. On the one hand, this realm of their present-time urban style in public pertains to personal coping strategies at both of the mental and emotional levels so as to keep carrying on their public life in the city and to secure personal safety all the time there. On the other hand, this term of urban public outlooks represents a kind of personal convincing stance aimed at keeping in mind constantly whenever going out into any public space of New York City. More specifically, some distinct forms of urban public outlooks include such personal mindsets, attitudes, or emotions as vigilance, attention to others, indifference, self-­ engagement, openness (or open-mindedness), thoughtfulness, thankfulness, kindness (or friendliness), personal distance (or dissociation), readiness to self-defense, understanding, speaking up or standing in facing or observing a problematic occasion, or a combination of these two or more. The other component of their present-time urban style in public is urban public behaviors. For their own part, this notion is understood as a wide range of their typical bodily postures and behavioral practices that are customarily being performed, or are always ready to perform, for their city life in public at the present time and even in the future. Otherwise, the key elements of urban public behaviors are their personalized bodily presentation, movement, management, or reactions (e.g., postures, gestures, spatial repositioning or distance, self-involvement with the use of props), facial presentation or management (e.g., eye gaze, contact, or discipline, open, indifferent, or firm countenance), verbal expressions (e.g., talks, voices, or tones), or a combination of these two or more. As to either or both of these two main components of their present-time urban style in public, most of my respondents described some explicit or implicit forms of it, which were exclusively gained from the situated self, that is, their particular personal experience in one of the New York City public spaces. Thus, for each of them, such an unusual public experience in the city

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became a self-imposed reference to their present-time urban style in public. In what follows, some specific forms of their present-time urban style in public that were already embraced from their personal experience of the situated self are elaborated on through some self-reported cases in accordance with each of the nine major themes—public harassment, racism, crime, rudeness, kindness, panhandling, exhibition, conversation, and filthiness—as described in Chaps. 1 and 2.

Public Harassment Some of my respondents treated the experience of public harassment from someone unknown to them as the most memorable, which had taken place earlier in one of the New York City public spaces. There exist the two broad categories of public harassment: (1) exploitation (or exploitative practices), such as touching, grabbing, pinching, stroking, following, scrutiny, hitting, other vulgar conducts (e.g., throwing, spitting), and approaching; and (2) evaluation (or evaluative practices), such as flattery, critical commentary, catcalling (or name calling), insults, contempt, or other verbal and non-verbal abuses (Gardner, 1995). The greater number of my respondents whose most memorable public experience in in the city was in this broader theme of public harassment were largely positioned as one of the victims (or one of the targets) who had been, directly or indirectly, harassed by an unacquainted stranger (or a handful of strangers). As a result, this personal experience has motivated themselves to build a new form of their own urban mindset and behavioral practices that now becomes an important part of their present-time urban style in public. Especially, vigilance (or precaution), known as one element of urban public outlooks in the realm of their present-time urban style in public, was the mostly frequently used word some of them embraced in their minds after such a public experience in the city. In this regard, they further pointed out their self-consciousness of vigilance and more attention to others in its public spaces after that alarming experience. For example, some of the passages my respondents wrote about this language of vigilance were: “I’ve learned to always check my surroundings”; “I am now very hyperaware of the people around me”; “This experience made me more aware of my presence in public spaces”; “I am always defensive and attentive”; “I’m always aware of who I sit next to”; “I do pay more attention to my surrounding”; “I am definitely on edge about walking outside alone”; “I am consistently self-monitoring in the public spaces and am hypervigilant,” and so on.

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Their concerns about vigilance to some urban strangers near them are a clear warning signal of how to adapt well to their city life in public and to behave properly there, both of which have to do with their own urban public behaviors, also known as the other major component of their present-­ time urban style in public. After their personal experience of public harassment, some of these respondents have used certain kinds of urban public behaviors with self-protecting vigilance. As a case in point, one respondent, female and Asian, has put into practice the assurance of personal space from anyone in public space after her past experience of a vulgar assault from an unfamiliar man near a hospital she was heading to: “There was a black man in a navy top and jeans passing by as I was walking to the hospital. All of a sudden, he spit on me, yelling of some words that I didn’t catch. I was shocked at that time, then I shouted out ‘Are you crazy?’ He laughed when he heard me saying that and ran away … After that experience, I do pay more attention to my surrounding and trying my best to keep more personal distance with any suspicious stranger.” After an appalling experience on public harassment in the city, there can come a palpable change in both bodily posture and facial expressions with vigilance to others, keeping in mind constantly during their regular reappearance into the city’s public spaces. This slight readjustment of personal physical postures and displays was being performed by one respondent, an African-American woman aged 25–34, who had been earlier faced with an ogling stranger on the bus: While on the bus, I was approached by a man who seemed to be in his late 40s. He started asking me some questions in a flirtatious manner. So, I reacted that he should back off, and that I also signaled myself no interest in him. But, he dismissed it and continued to pursue further … After this happening, I have become much more aware of my surroundings. Now I used to walk with my head up, speedily and with a stern face. I don’t give anyone the impression that I’m approachable or new to this area.

To some of my respondents, that personal experience of such an unexpected public harassment in the city becomes a long-lasting, profound trauma that has habitually driven themselves to keep looking out for any danger while reappearing into any public space of New York City. Unsurprisingly, certain sets of urban public behaviors (e.g., altered urban practices, having props) would come into play together with their mindset of guardedness to some suspicious strangers in the same public surroundings. For instance, this is applied to one respondent, a white woman at college age, after her experience of shouted remarks and physical approach

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from one of the subway riders one day: “The individual was screaming with negative comments and cursing. He eventually came into my face and was yelling at me … I was unsure of what was going to happen. I also feared he could’ve had a weapon on him … I am very hyperaware of the people around me, and for a while, I refused to take any subway, instead I walked from Grand Central [Terminal in Midtown Manhattan] to my school. I also now carry around pepper spray and try and make myself not look as presentable.” Even some of my respondents, mainly as those bystanders who were also one of the observers to the occasion of an unexpected public harassment earlier, further pointed out the perpetual necessity of both precaution and proper behavioral reaction. For instance, my respondent, female and Asian, described a new set of her urban attitudes and practices before getting on a subway train after her earlier experience of watching a fight between several adults on it: “As the train pulled in and opened the doors, a stranger stood in the middle of the doors and told me not to go in. I then looked inside the train to see what was happening, and saw a couple of men beating each other up. The train doors were just open for every passerby easily to look up at this public scene, but no one on the station was trying to stop it … This has made me extra cautious when I now get on the train, such as sticking my head inside the train car and looking around before I physically enter it. Another thing I do is that as the train is pulling into the station, I crouch down a little to see what is happening inside the train cars through the windows.” In some self-reported cases in this theme of public harassment, the attitude of public vigilance works together with one or more of the other elements of urban public outlooks. For instance, sustaining a stance of indifference or callousness is another element of urban public outlooks. What’s more, these new elements of urban public outlooks would be also combined with a new constituent of urban public behaviors (e.g., no eye contact with strangers). A case in point is the one that my respondent, female and white, experienced on the moving subway train earlier: “I sat down next to a stranger on the F train while conversing with a friend who was standing up … As I started to speak, the stranger next to me who was wearing all black and had their face covered started to curse at me … And even he tried to spit on me before I got up from the seat … However, having such a terrifying experience has taught me to be aware of who I sit next to. It has also affected me to judge the appearance of others because if they look ‘nice’ or ‘put together,’ I assume it is safe to sit next to them.

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I am more alert on the train now and try not to make eye contact with strangers on the train cart.” Among the elements of urban public outlooks, holding coolness or calmness is as essential as vigilance when dealing with a situational danger. Thus, coolness, coupled with vigilance, is important for acting properly at times of personal uncertainties or vulnerabilities in its public spaces. As a self-reported case that is suited to this point, one respondent, female and Asian, was once approached by a stranger on the street late at night while on her way home with her two other companions: “I was walking home with my sister and my best friend. It was around 11 p.m. As we came near the corner of my friend’s home, we noticed a man stumbling his way towards us. We kept our heads low and tried to avoid eye contact with him by assuming that he would just walk away. However, he stopped right in front of us … That abrupt encounter made me become more aware of my surroundings and taught me how to react to these kinds of situations. Since then, I’ve always stayed calm in these kinds of situations because if I freaked out, I would not have been able to think properly or reacted in the way that is safe for me.” This specific mindset of coolness also backs a new set of urban public behaviors, such as certain practices of facial management and bodily postures and movements. This seems to fit in with the case of another respondent, female and Asian, who experienced catcalling from a man on the street: “I walked home in broad daylight. An unfamiliar man was standing by the curb, and I assumed that he was waiting to cross the street. Unfortunately, he catcalled me… I now know how to act when I see a male stranger catcall me. I will always keep a straight face, almost hostile gaze at anyone with an intent to approach me. If anyone were to say anything, I’d just keep walking as if the situation has me unfazed. Outside confidence is key.” In some of my respondents, their self-reported accounts were unclear about the ways that their urban public outlooks have any close connection with some of their urban public behaviors. In this light, one respondent, female and white, stressed more about a change in her urban public behaviors after her experience of public harassment from a strange man on the street: “The stranger publicly assaulted me with his bare hand while walking past me. He slapped me on my butt … After the situation happened, I have felt scared to be alone in most public spaces. I was only 16 years old at the time, so I really didn’t know what to do and I felt like I had no power to do anything. I used to stop looking at men whenever I have to

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pass them. Also, I have started wearing my backpack lower to cover myself, and I have been constantly looking behind my shoulder. As an adult now, I am still afraid that someone may touch me in public again.” In some of these public harassment cases, there was a clear clue of what specific aspects of urban public outlooks could be relatively easily detected from their self-reported accounts. After observing an incident of public harassment earlier, one respondent, a racially unidentified woman, stated the importance of fearless attitude or valor in the domain of urban public outlooks if a similar occasion like the past one happens to her again. Indeed, she regretted not speaking up when some teenagers on the train made cynical comments on a rider’s outfit one day: “I was on the train where there were a group of high school students, and they were making fun of a woman who seemed to be in her 40s. They were saying things about her clothes, and I felt that that woman targeted couldn’t speak English at all … I would stand up if a similar situation happens again.” As a whole, each of these respondents who was put in place as one of the victims or one of the bystanders during an occurrence of public harassment in the city before has developed oneself a new form of urban public outlooks and/or urban public behaviors that has become as an important part of their present-time urban style in public in order to avoid or defend oneself against any personal danger while reappearing into the New York City public spaces. To each of them, particularly, their mindset of vigilance is central to their current urban public outlooks, just as it is important in directing or managing their current urban public behaviors.

Public Racism As stated in Chap. 2, public racism is understood as any act of public discrimination against members of ethnic and racial minority groups (e.g., blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Jews) from the so-called alleged majority or mainstream racial members in American society (e.g., whites, blacks, the police). In Chap. 2, public racism has been further identified with a diverse range of self-reported cases that include racist remarks (e.g., slurs, insults, curses), offensive racist gestures or bodily movements, or a physical attack or violence against the former from the latter in one of the New York City public spaces. For those individual respondents who had recounted their experience of a public racism in the city as either of one of its victims or one of its bystanders, they described its implications on their current urban public outlooks or/and urban public behaviors. Looking into all their

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individual accounts on this topic, some of these respondents put an emphasis only on some aspects of their urban public outlooks, known as one larger component of their present-time urban style in public, whereas the rest of them concatenated this part of it with some aspects of their current urban public behaviors. As for some self-reported cases that had stressed a new addition to their urban public outlooks in response to their experience of a public racism in the city, vigilance and its related synonymous words (e.g., precaution, hyperawareness), as in public harassment, were the most frequently cited ones. Then, vigilance was not the only core piece of urban public outlooks among some of my other respondents who also evaluated their personal experience of an urban public racism as their most memorable. For example, the mindset of vigilance with a mental state of coolness, in the domain of urban public outlooks, has become the important elements of their present-­time urban style in public for one respondent, female and Hispanic, who experienced a racist comment amid her benevolent help toward a white lady who had severely fallen onto the entrance of the bus with all her items spilled over to the ground: “The boy (Caucasian) picked up her wallet and some other small items, I picked up her phone and helped to pick her up along with the other girl (the girl and I were both clearly black). The lady quickly got up almost as if she didn’t want me and the other girl to help her up, snatching her phone out of my hands and putting them in her purse while mumbling, ‘You might rob me’ … She turned to the young man holding her wallet, and said: ‘Thank you, young man, May God bless you’ … From that day forward, I am struggling with how white people would think of or interact with me, so I kind of just wait it out first and let them set the tone.” Indeed, a really bad public experience in the city can be seen as a kind of personal awakening time to consider the adoption of some new elements in the domain of one’s urban public outlooks. As an example, my respondent, female and Asian, recognized the importance of English fluency in American society after she had witnessed a black man’s verbal assaults against two old Chinese adults on the bus: “There were one tall black guy standing and old Chinese man and women sitting in the seat. The black man seemed to be about 40–45 years old, whereas the other two were really very old. When he was about to sit down, those old people could sit on there first, and then, the man got mad at them. He continued yelling, cursing and abusing with his words … I realized that those who cannot speak English are most of the time inferior to those who can speak

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English well.” Similarly, one respondent, female and African American, now has a better awareness about the true reality of racial segregation and anti-blackness in American society through her experience that a white man quickly got up and ran onto the next subway cart as soon as she sat next to him with putting the hood of a winter coat on her head. What she has come to realize after that stunning experience is: “My skin color comes with stereotypes that still live up to this day, and this experience really helped me to understand what it means to be just black anywhere in United States.” In some self-reported cases, there was a new addition to both components of their present-time urban style in public. For example, a specific pattern of a connection between her urban public outlooks (e.g., vigilance, indifference, dissociation) and her urban public behaviors (e.g., bodily displays) was stated by one respondent, female and Hispanic, who had observed one lady on the same train ride yelling at a Hispanic man “go back to your country.” After this public experience, she described some new forms in her current personal urban style in public: “I try to stay away from people who I feel like would attack me, and I try to not start problems with anyone else by keeping my distance from them. Also, I try to not wear my outfit to think of me as a Mexican because I feel like I would get more attacked.” Another example associating some urban public outlooks (e.g., vigilance, avoidance, mistrust toward others) with a new set of urban public behaviors (e.g., facial and bodily expressions) was described by one respondent, female and Asian, after her experience of offensive racist gestures against herself on the subway from three white teenagers during the earlier 2020 crisis of the coronavirus pandemic, formally named as “the COVID-19 pandemic,” in New York City. This new form in her current personalized urban style in public emerged from that particular experience: “I did alter my perceptions of others, such as I no longer see everyone as positive human beings. Since then, I’d tend to look down, look away from others, put my hat on and sunglasses.” To one of my respondents (a racially unidentified woman), her experience of a public racism in the city, which was directly related to an unacquainted man’s thunderous shouting of “go back to your country” on a street in Brooklyn, has also contributed to her current personal urban style in public in which certain sets of her urban public outlooks (e.g., vigilance, coolness, indifference) and urban public behaviors (e.g., facial engagement, bodily posture) were newly added up because of that experience: “It made me realize that I need to be always aware of my surroundings because

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hateful people are everywhere. It also taught me that you shouldn’t give in to them and just let them say whatever they want to. It’s hard to defend yourself, but the best is to just walk away … Whenever I walk anywhere, I tend to keep a resting face with a ‘mean’ walking stance.” Taken together, the personal experience of a public racism in the city pushed its respondents to adopt some of their new urban public outlooks and/or urban public behaviors, which became now an important part of their present-time urban style in public.

Public Crime Robbery was the most frequently cited among those respondents who had been either one of the victims or one of the bystanders from a crime incident that occurred in one of the New York City public spaces earlier, broadly known as a type of public crime. Robbery, which is also called mugging if it happens in any public space, is characterized as “completed or attempted theft, directly from a person, of property or cash by force or threat of force, with or without a weapon, and with or without injury.”1 Indeed, the personal experience or observation of a public robbery in New York City, whatever its specific type and their situational placement were at the time, became an enlightening one that has taught them to guide something important for their present or future urban life in public. Thus, to some degree, their present-time urban style in public would embrace some lesson from this particular public experience in the city. At first, this urban public experience could lead them to include a new element in the domain of their current urban public outlooks. For example, one respondent, female and African American, was a victim of a stranger’s theft, but luckily not resulting in injury, on the train: “A man grabbed my cellphone and ran away. The train doors were closed; I could not go out to get the phone … I make sure I always pay more attention to my belongings.” The second component of their present-time urban style in public is a whole set of their urban public behaviors. For example, another respondent, male and Asian, changed a typical daily routine of his public appearance by switching his work schedule into the daytime. This change, which has now belonged to his current urban public behaviors, came after his shocking experience of the observation that a stranger on the subway had punched a female rider multiple times and “snatched to take her purse bag, mobile and golden locket on her neck” around 5  a.m. in the

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morning: “From the incident day to date, I have changed my working schedule and now worked in the day time. In case I need an emergency travel at early morning, I feel an increasing sense of insecurity and feel scared.” For the most part, a personal experience of this type of violent crime tends to affect both components of their present-time urban style in public. Along with the mindsets of vigilance and mistrust toward strangers in the realm of urban public outlooks, a new set of urban public behaviors, such as securing personal space and having no possession of any valuable items during public appearance, were what one respondent, female and Hispanic, implemented after her experience of the theft that had also accompanied physical attack against her from a stranger. Her assailant was a drunken man while returning home from her work: “I was with both of my daughters (a 3 years old and a 4-month baby) … He was pulling the stroller to steal my purse while punching my face … I wanted to give him the purse in my hope of stopping pulling the stroller, and he did … This incident changed my whole life. Now I always pay attention to my surroundings, I don’t trust anyone, and I don’t like anyone close to me. Besides, I try not to carry cash or valuable items with me.” In a similar fashion, an addition to her current personalized urban style in public (e.g., vigilance and a behavioral change in public) was also stated by one respondent, female and Hispanic, after her victimization experience of theft with violent physical assault from a stranger near her neighborhood in Brooklyn: “I was walking on my block, and it was a bright sunny summer evening. A guy in a bicycle was passing me by, then turned around a few houses down and started heading my way … it was too late. I just felt a sharp pain in my chest where he slapped me to grab hold of my gold chain … It did alter my perceptions of others in public spaces. Now I take different routes to get home, and I have been more vigilant about my surroundings regardless of what time of the day it is.” Interestingly enough, a new addition to urban public outlooks and urban public behaviors, both of which represent their present-time urban style in public, can happen not only among some victims of the aggravated assault in public or among some bystanders who observed it but also among some people who had no first-hand witness on such an incident: here, aggravated assault is defined as “an attack or attempted attack with a weapon, regardless of whether an injury occurred, and an attack without a weapon when serious injury results.”2 A case that is relevant to this matter was reported by one respondent, female and Asian, who came to realize

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later that she had allowed a stranger to enter the store she was working around closing time: “As I was closing up at work, someone came in, and ran into the bathroom. He seemed panicky, and was looking all around the place. When he came out, I asked him to leave since we would be closed soon and he did. After a few minutes, I heard a lot of police officers … They told me that he stabbed someone and ran away from the police, and that they were looking for him.” After this happening, she further described how this experience affected her: “It did alter my perceptions of others in any public space. I am trusting strangers less now. Whenever our business hours end, I tend to close it up right away. I used to clean up and then lock the door prior to this incident, but now I lock the door first. Also, I try to stay on the phone with a friend when I’m closing and I carry pepper spray.” Overall, for some of my respondents who considered the direct or indirect experience of a crime incident in one of the New York City public spaces as the most memorable, such a surprising experience has contributed to the construction, or reconstruction, of their present-time urban style in public, to a greater or lesser degree, as in both public harassment and public racism.

Public Rudeness A set of verbal or non-verbal (e.g., facial, bodily, or physical) expressions of public incivilities against others—either with or without an expectation of hurting or harming others verbally, emotionally, or physically—are my definition of public rudeness. To distinguish this notion of public rudeness from those of public harassment, racism, and crime that are somewhat intersected with it both in meaning and in form, a relatively distinctive feature of public rudeness can be comprehended in four different ways. First of all, public rudeness is an urban stranger’s (or a handful of urban strangers’) unintended misconduct against one of my respondents or another in one of the New York City public spaces (e.g., a subway, the bus, a sidewalk). Either or both parties’ physical movement and space management in it is usually attributed to the sudden happening of this kind of public misbehavior against one party from the other. For example, some self-reported cases of these incidents in a phrase are: “moving their hands all around near me”; “push me”; “being touched”; “pressed even harder against the people near the entrance”; “accidentally bumped into a woman”; “a lady blocking the way,” and so on. Although this particular

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kind of public incident did not cause severe physical harm to its targeted people, to some of my respondents, however, this type of public rudeness was the most memorable among many past experiences of their public life in the city. In their own world, then, this personal experience of that particular public rudeness has become now well filtered and immersed into their present-time urban style in public. According to the self-reported case that one respondent, female and Asian, described, for example, some new elements of her current personal urban style in public, as the result of severe bodily contact with some people on the crowded street one day in Bryant Park, Manhattan, were vigilance in her current urban public outlooks and personal space or dissociation in her current urban public behaviors: “Everyone was just rushing around trying to get to where they need to be going … After being pushed, I fell to the floor … I learn to be careful and more aware of my environment and try to avoid any crowded location.” Even the onset of a new set of urban public behaviors is sometimes subjected to this specific kind of public experience. For example, another respondent, female and African American, experienced an accidental body contact with a bus rider during the morning rush hour. “I was on the bus going to school about 8 o’clock, and the bus was packed with many passengers so that the bus driver told everybody to move back. So, I did move back, but this lady decided to push me hard and yell at me,” she stated. “I changed my daily schedule … And I switched my schedule to start going to school for 9  in the morning, and I started going to school using a totally different train line.” Secondly, public rudeness can be identified as a breaking of a series of informal rules and norms that should be, commonly and tacitly, held to all the people in any public setting. Sometimes, people in one of the crowded places, such as in a packed subway train, can be uncomfortable hearing a very loud noise one of its riders, or a group of its riders, are making. Just as this public hubbub can intrude on the privacy of its other riders, an inordinately sensitive reaction to it, likewise, is inappropriate if this can cause innocent people the feeling of embarrassment. One respondent, female and white, described such a situation: “I was on the train with my friend. Some guy got upset over a phone call, and started to yell at an innocent woman out of nowhere.” Then, this experience taught her the importance of vigilance toward some urban strangers on the train: “I do realize that there are always some people out there who aren’t 100% safe. They actually need medical attention. Therefore, we need to be very safe especially on the train.”

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Like vigilance, coolness and indifference are the other key elements of urban public outlooks that belong to one large component of their present-­ time urban style in public. These two specific elements of urban public outlooks were emphasized by one respondent, female and Hispanic, who had earlier observed a tit-for-tat dispute between two subway train riders due to “the lack of space” on her morning commute: “Now I just ignore some riders’ bad attitudes and keep my thoughts to myself. I focus on reaching my destination, even if I have to be slightly pushed by some riders standing close to me.” In the meantime, an inadvertent disclosure of private or family matters in front of a big crowd in public is still a taboo in our society. This is the case that some parents chastise their own children loudly and openly. Another respondent, female and white, witnessed such a scene on a train one day: “I sat directly behind the mother and son, heard every word, witnessing her pinching and squeezing him … His mother kept yelling at him … He was evidently embarrassed for his mother yelling at him so loudly.” From the angle of urban public outlooks (e.g., lack of thoughtfulness toward others in public), what she learned from this observation is, “I have come to realize that some people do not care about their surroundings.” Thirdly, some public reaction from one of the victims against the person(s) who initiated an unintended offense or an unpleasant behavior first can be regarded as a different form of public rudeness, though those occasions are very rare to happen. This inappropriate reaction of the former directly against the latter includes the former’s expressions of facial or physical threats, abusive remarks, or actual physical assaults as retaliation in kind. Take, for example, the experience of one respondent, female and African American, who witnessed this sort of public occasion on her subway ride: “A male ride got on the train, and accidentally, he stepped on another guy’s foot. The guy who made a mistake apologized, but the one who was stepped on slapped the other guy even after he apologized.” This past observation taught her something new for her current urban public outlooks (e.g., valor): “People in NYC mind their own business… Something can happen to you in its public space. If this can happen to me, I will defend myself with all my might.” Fourthly and lastly, whether intentional or not, someone’s ignorance or disregard of newly or existing established rules or social conventions that should be kept in any public space is a sort of public rudeness. Obviously, social distancing of at least 6 feet from other people in the same public space is a new rule that the New York City authorities enacted in the year

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2020 to prevent the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19).3 One respondent, female and white, stated her worry and anger due to the senseless reality that some people do not follow this new public code: “I used to go to the grocery store overtime with my mother, but people just don’t understand the concept of standing 6 feet away in it. It’s quite scary.” This intense feeling of fear further caused her to change a set of her existing urban public behaviors: “Definitely, my daily routine has changed. I cannot go out to the gym, and I can’t hang out with my friends anymore.” On the whole, my respondents, who had experienced an unanticipated public rudeness in the city, whether directly or indirectly, stated some new elements inclusive of either or both components of their present-time urban style in public for the reason of their personal safety or of their worry about any possible intervention on their urban public life in the present and future.

Public Kindness In discussions of the afore-mentioned sections, which ranged from public harassment to public rudeness, embracing a new set of pieces into their present-time urban style in public as the result of a particular personal experience in one of the New York City’s public spaces, whether it is something for their urban public outlooks or their urban public behaviors, or both, seems to be their own coping strategies to enhance their personal safety, or otherwise, to lessen any uncertainty in their current public life in the city. On the contrary, however, their amazing personal experience of a public kindness in the city can not only contribute to something in their present-­ time urban style in public but also make themselves dip into the sense of community with other fellow New Yorkers. In one sense, public kindness in scope is meant to be “small offerings,” such as giving “directions, the time, a match,” or the ritual practice of greetings or courtesies, such as “[h]and-waving, hat-tipping, and other ‘appeasement gestures,’” to urban strangers in a close distance (Goffman, 1971, pp. 63–66, 74). In another, it further includes “substantive care” for some unacquainted urbanites (Goffman, 1971, p. 66). In fact, some of my respondents gave, received, or observed this sort of patronage in one of the New York City public spaces to, from, or among their unknown strangers. For example, some literal expressions of it were: “I only had my chipotle, and I was also hungry. But, I gave it to her” [a homeless woman]; “I was shocked and surprised as she would let us take it [the pizza]

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without paying full”; “She told me that I should stay out of the sun with offering me a bottle of water”; and “[t]he woman got pulled up on to the platform in time by someone else there before a subway train was about to arrive,” among others. Here, the question that really needs an answer is what my respondents—as one of the initiators (or givers), one of the bystanders (or onlookers), or one of the recipients—have added to their present-time urban style in public as the consequence of this kind of their public experience in the city. To that end, below are some self-reported cases that are relevant to this topic. First, some of my respondents took on the role of conducting a certain type of public kindness to another. As an example, one respondent, male and Hispanic, described his unique experience that was involved in helping out a subway train conductor and a few operators with a handful of other passengers by helping to open some of its doors severely covered with frozen ice due to the freezing temperatures: “This encounter happened during a NYC blizzard in 2006. I was on my way home from work on the J train … During the first couple of stops, the conductor and door operators would have to walk through each of its carts to shut the doors, manually, which of course delayed the train. Before long, I and the other train passengers decided to step in and help them out. As the train stayed on its track, I and several passengers in each of its carts manually shut the doors for the train operator in order to avoid more delays.” For that reason, later on, vigilance, open-mindedness, more attention to others have been instilled in his current urban public outlooks: “I watch my surrounding more often now. I observe the strangers around me … I pay more attention to emergency exits and the elderly or those in need of assistance.” As another example, the importance of open-mindedness and goodness in her urban public outlooks was what one respondent, female and white, learned and adopted after her short but multiple contacts with a homeless man of good nature: “About 5 years ago in Soho, Manhattan, I passed this homeless man. He was relaxed sitting there not trying to disturb anyone passing by him. There was a coffee truck about one block away from him, and I stopped to pick up a coffee for myself and another coffee and a doughnut for him … The man was so grateful … He told me that he was a veteran struggling to find a job … It taught me not to judge homeless people. We don’t know all of their stories and how they ended up in the predicament as they are now in. Be kind to everyone and judge less.” In another self-reported case, one respondent, female and African American, stated the importance of vigilance or more attention to others in her

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current urban public outlooks, as well as a subtle change in one element of her urban public behaviors (e.g., self-involvement), after witnessing a woman falling really hard on the bus because of her missed step: “A stranger and I helped pick the woman up and gather her things together. We were able to call the ambulance and sit with her until it arrived … I am always pretty alert while walking on the streets of NYC. When anything had come up suddenly, it made me turn my music in my headphones down so that I could be able to hear what’s going on in the streets.” In certain circumstances, some unacquainted people might come to help us out. For example, one respondent, female and Native Hawaiian, stated a new element for her current urban public outlooks (e.g., friendliness) that stemmed from her particular experience at one of the New York City public spaces: “I was walking to my doctor’s office in the Bronx … Since I was walking very fast, I didn’t realize that I had dropped my bag with my phone, wallet, keys, my Air Pods case, and all my money and a debit card. I had walked about 15 minutes before I had noticed that I lost my bag. I turned around and saw this homeless man walking up to me, and he handed me my bag and said, ‘You dropped this, young lady’ … This event did change the way I saw people in New York. It showed me that not everyone is stuck up and mean and only cares about themselves.” In a similar context, another respondent, female and Hispanic, described a new array of her current urban public outlooks (e.g., vigilance, open-­ mindedness, some trustworthiness to urban strangers, willingness to help others) as the result of one of her public experiences in the city: “This happened in the summer of 2014 … I fainted in a subway car … About three strangers helped me stand up from the floor. Someone was screaming loudly because they were afraid since I fell flat on my face. Two of them offered me their seats … I remember two people telling me to drink water. A few others were asking how I was, at what stop I was getting off, and if I could commute to where I was going to … This remarkable experience did cause me to alter my perceptions of others in New York City. Previously, I had a generally negative view on New Yorkers hanging around on its public spaces. Prior to this incident, I also enjoyed my ride when the subway cars were empty, but I realized that people can help me if I ever experience the same situation again. Also, I have had a habit to self-­ monitor my surroundings. If someone were to ever experience a similar situation like me, I would try to help them, as well.” Not surprisingly, personal attitudes of care and vigilance as a part of their current urban public outlooks were learned among some of my

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respondents who had earlier observed a unique type of stranger interaction, such as a good deed of someone for another. A case for this account was described by one respondent, female and white, who had witnessed a dangerous situation of a woman walking on subway tracks. This experience impressed her the need for constant vigilance and a genuine willingness to help others in its public spaces: “I was on my way home, and one person was standing in the middle of the train tracks when a train was coming. Everyone was trying to wave the train down to stop, but it was moving too fast, then the woman soon got pulled up on to the platform in time before it came … It definitely taught me to be more aware of my surroundings.” Similarly, some of my respondents, who had witnessed an act of public kindness in the city, also considered it as a very important momentum for their urban public life with others. One of the self-reported cases that related to this point was stated by my respondent, female and white, who had witnessed her husband’s good conduct for someone’s life at extreme risk and pointed out its big impact on the shaping of her current urban public outlooks (e.g., vigilance) and urban public behaviors (e.g., bodily management and movements): “I was waiting for the subway with my husband, and a guy who stood on the subway platform fell off onto the train tracks. My husband jumped down and helped him out … Since then, I have been more aware of my surroundings on subway platforms, stayed farther from the edge of the platform, and paid more attention to who was around.” Overall, to be sure, an unanticipated experience of public kindness in the city worked as a critical force for most of its respondents in the making of their present-time urban style in public, particularly in its domain of urban public outlooks.

Public Panhandling As defined in Chap. 2, public panhandling, also often called public begging, is someone’s one-sided acts to make requests for money, goods, or food to others in public spaces through their displays of verbal cues, body language, or facial expressions, or with cardboard signs in some cases. To some degree, this word of public panhandling intersects with both of public harassment and public rudeness. Definitely, public panhandling is a kind of public harassment if potential patrons see public begging as a threat to their routine urban life or their public safety. When these potential patrons also view such soliciting acts of panhandlers as an intrusion of

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their personal space, a breaking of underlying public etiquettes, or as a complete disregard of social codes that should be commonly held by all in the same public spaces, public panhandling can be tantamount to public rudeness, as well. However, there exist some potential patrons who don’t see some acts of panhandlers as either public harassment or public rudeness. Beyond some crossroads and boundaries among these three public matters, this particular personal experience of public panhandling has also contributed to their present-time urban style in public. From this point on, let’s illustrate some of self-reported cases that are of relevance. There was a self-reported case that one respondent, male and white, described the importance of his urban public outlooks (e.g., vigilance, coolness, ignorance) and urban public behaviors (e.g., bodily practices of self-­ involvement). He stated the details of his personal experience and these new elements inclusive of his current personal urban style in public: “I headed home after school around 7 p.m. one day, and I was on the 6th train at the time. And I was sitting on the train with headphones on for listening to music, and I saw a passenger boarding the train. He began yelling at people to get their attention, and then, began asking for money. Since then, he went from person to person to ask each of us for money even if we all ignored him … From this, I learned that if people are trying to get your attention, you can just ignore them, and they will leave eventually. If you don’t want to hear them, you can turn up the volume on your music.” In another self-reported case from one respondent, female and Hispanic, who had encountered a homeless person around her local neighborhood one day, the attitudes of indifference and coolness with a bodily management of self-involvement were stressed as an addition to her current personal urban style in public: “A women around her early 20s was homeless and asked if I could help her some money that is desperately needed to pick up her daughter. So, I went to the deli to get change for a $10 and gave her half … Now I just never take my headphones off as a way to hinder someone to approach me.” For another respondent, male and Asian, a clear recognition of which panhandlers deserve, or which panhandlers don’t deserve at all, to receive money or food from the general public became an important addition to his current urban public outlooks. After his observation of the serious altercation between a homeless man and a subway train rider, he could develop a mindset of this sort (e.g., the need of a wise judgment and coolness): “Since it was during rush hour, the train was crowded so that there wasn’t much space to move. He [the homeless man] started moving through the

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train to ask people for money. Most people ignored him. Eventually, a man yelled at him that he should get a job. Both men started arguing … They continued to call each other names and to yell … This homeless man was abusing people’s sympathy … After this public occasion, I began thinking twice before I gave money to someone like this homeless man.” As another example, an experience of a public encounter with a homeless man motivated my respondent, female and Asian, to cultivate some of her current urban public outlooks (e.g., vigilance, coolness, self-­engagement) and urban public behaviors (e.g., bodily management and orientation) for her security reasons: “A homeless man tried to ask me for money on the N train … He then delivered a long speech, such as how his cards were unlucky, how he was kicked out of his apartment because of his inability to pay rent, and then, his final words that any spare change would help … Also, he had a used cup that was labeled with dollar signs … After that unanticipated experience, it did make me more cautious about where I am and who is with me … Additionally, when I take on the train, I keep my facial expression colder … Furthermore, I use my earbuds more to listen to music and try to avoid eye contact with suspicious people … If it is a crowded train. I try to stand near a train door.” To one of my respondents, female and Hispanic, kindness and openness toward any homeless people have become a part of her current personalized urban style in public. She stated, “As I was walking into a coffee shop, I was approached by a homeless man. He asked me if I could possibly buy him a cup of coffee on that cold morning to warm him up. I was genuinely happy because I was able to help someone start their day on a better note … There are some people who need the small things we have like being able to buy a cup of coffee … We must always be kind.” As a result, what she had learned from such a public experience with an unidentified homeless man was the importance of kindness and openness toward any homeless persons, which have already been absorbed into her current urban public outlooks, in particular.

Public Exhibition From the perspective of some people (e.g., spectators) who gather together in one of the city’s public spaces for a while, public exhibition is something that grabs their attention, especially their visual attention, because of an exhilarating, lukewarm, or unpleasant activity or presentation from another there. My respondents who considered this theme of public exhibition as

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the most memorable public experience in the city further pointed out its influence on their present-time urban style in public. Below, the three self-­ reported cases are detailed. The first case that one respondent, male and Hispanic, described is about an addition to his current urban public outlooks, specifically the development of a positive attitude (e.g., thankfulness or appreciation) toward subway or street performers after his observation of a jazz performance of a musician on the subway: “I was on my way home from school … It was a musician who was performing on the subway. He was playing jazz music with his saxophone. This individual seemed to be a young adult probably in his mid-20s. I didn’t see it as disruptive, more of in awe since this was my first time to see the saxophone live … We should appreciate this group of individuals who perform out on the subway through a donation or perhaps by revealing our open thanks for their performance.” Similarly, another self-reported case was described by a female respondent of Hispanic background, who had witnessed an event of a stranger’s performance on the subway train. Later, it has affected her current urban public outlooks (e.g., both ambivalent perceptions of urban creativity and public disturbance): “I was a bystander on the R train … He seemed eager to grab everyone’s attention. I was a little uncomfortable because that subway dancer got a little too close to me. But I wasn’t scared or angry … The subway dance allowed me to be more appreciative of the creatives in NYC. Oftentimes we as individuals get annoyed by such disruptions, but if you can take a step back, you would feel more positive.” In general, however, the personal experience of a public exhibition in the city was negative among some of my respondents. For example, this is applied to the self-reported case that one respondent, male and Asian, had witnessed someone to sell marijuana on the evening subway train. Indeed, such an unusual experience eventually led him to embrace himself the attitudes of vigilance and attention toward some types of urban strangers thereafter: “I was sitting down just minding my own business when this stranger got on the train and started to advertise what he had for sale. However, this wasn’t a regular candy sale or mixtape sale, but he was actually selling marijuana openly. He was asking all the passengers on the train if they would want to purchase it in a loud and alarming matter … It did alter my perception of others in the sense that you have to be careful in public.” In comparing both components of their present-time urban style in public after my overview of all the self-reported cases related to this theme of

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public exhibition, my conclusion is that their personal experience on it brought a more meaningful implication to their current urban public outlooks over their current urban public behaviors.

Public Conversation As broadly defined in Chap. 2, public conversation is any kind of verbal communication between or among the urban strangers who gathered randomly and temporarily in one of the New York City public spaces. In general, the features of their public talks can be genuine or insincere in nature, clear or vague in topic, relatively short or long in length, unilateral or reciprocal in degree, or some of these combined. Moreover, one or both parties in the midst of a public conversation can feel comfortable viewing it or the other way around. For some of my respondents whose most memorable public experience in the city was such an occasion of public conversation, another interesting point is that they were usually not the initiators of it to another there, but often one of the persons in response to the latter in its early stage. The question to be answered here is whether their personal experience of such a public conversation has affected their present-time urban style in public to some degree. To some of my respondents, vigilance or more attention to others (in a more positive light) in public spaces, known as an element of their current urban public outlooks, was indeed learned from their personal experience of a particular public conversation in the city. This is actually the case that one respondent, female and Hispanic, has materialized after her own experience at a café in the fall of 2019: “I walked into the Cafe to study and get some school work done. I noticed a lady sitting with her service dog, but I did not pay much attention to her. Then, she started the conversation with me and told me that she is grateful that I did not ask to pet her dog … I was so surprised that she started the conversation with me, for people in NYC are usually very antisocial … I have become more aware of others surrounding me. You truly do not know what another person may be going through.” As for the realm of their current urban public behaviors, a case in point was about the self-report of one respondent, female and Hispanic, who had experienced an unpleasant encounter with a woman in the park in a summer and later adopted a new kind of behavioral practice owing to it: “I was in the park one day with my daughter. There one woman approached me, and then, she spoke to me many weird things I couldn’t quite understand. Also, she asked me some odd questions. The

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woman did not know me, her story did not make sense at all, and she was in the park alone … It made me consider going to the park at different times.” It seems very rare to have a conversation with some strangers in a public space with a warm and friendly atmosphere. One respondent, female and white, experienced such a case that has resulted in a positive outcome for her current personalized urban style in public, such as open-mindedness and a set of new changes in her facial and bodily management: “My mom and I sat down in a very crowded bus, right next to an elderly woman … Our interaction started when the older woman asked me where I had gotten a large bag I was carrying on. I quickly replied, ‘Marshalls’ in one word … Then, I heard my mom speak up and compliment the woman on her red lipstick. The woman thanked her, then looked up at my mom, and she was smiling. Since then, she started making conversation, and spoke out loud, telling us about where she goes shopping for various knick-­ knacks as well as clothes, and my mother kept complimenting her. They had a long discussion about shops in the area … Now I am more likely to smile and take my headphones off if someone tries to ask me a question.” Contrary to this case, the past experience on the observation of a public conversation between the two strangers became a wake-up call for one respondent, female and African American, who had witnessed a very heated argument between two passengers on the subway train one day. She stated: “While I was on the train, two people were arguing … It was a worrying moment for me because of the way the two people were arguing.” She continued, “When you’re in New York, you have to be mindful of what you do or say. This is why a lot of the times I just learn to mind my own business, and just stay on my phone.” By implication, both vigilance and the bodily practice of self-involvement seem to be an important part of her current personal urban style in public.

Public Filthiness As stressed in Chap. 2, public filthiness is understood as the emotional expressions of the general public, such as disgust, aversion, or discomfort, which arose from their direct observation about a scene of someone’s bodily gesture or behavior really unsuitable in outdoor settings or against themselves or another, or which arose from their sense of someone’s foul smell. There would be absolutely no one who wants to go through another

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experience similar to that past one over again. A particular case that shows the absorption of such an experience into his current urban public outlooks (e.g., perceptions of vigilance and avoidance) was stated by one respondent, male and Asian: “At the beginning of the year, in Midtown Manhattan, I was walking with my girlfriend during New Year’s Eve/New Year’s Day, and I realized soon that a homeless man had spit something at me from afar … He seemed to be bitterly talking to himself under his breath … Therefore, it is much better to just avoid certain people that seemed inclined to be bitter to us.” As another example, some new elements of her current urban public outlooks—for example, more attention to others, thoughtfulness, and vigilance—were described by one of my respondents, female and Asian, after she had witnessed a female passenger’s action inimical to a male passenger on the subway cart around mid-March of 2020: “I was sitting on the train, and after a few stops, an elderly man got on the train. He was sitting a seat down from where I was, and began to cough very aggressively. As soon as he coughed, the woman sitting next to him screamed and sprang out of her seat in disgust … this woman reacted towards this man in fear that he might have the coronavirus. He did in fact cough into his arm … It did make me think about being more aware of how I can impact others … This also made me realize how there are very different types of people in the world, and some people will be mean, rude, and disgusting to others in certain situations.” Likewise, the personal experience of a public filthiness can also become a driving force to embrace a new practice in the realm of their current urban public behaviors. A self-reported case that is of relevance to this was revealed by my respondent, female and Hispanic: “A man was laying naked on the floor … I felt disgusted, because this was a man naked laying on the streets where a child could have passed.” She further stated: “I now avoid walking along the street.” In particular, this is indicative of a change in her typical public behaviors in the city. Our individual self has the capacity to learn from some of our own experiences that took place in the real world. To all my respondents, their particular personal experience in one of the New York City public spaces (e.g., an unanticipated or problematic public event) became something so powerful enough to shape their current personal urban style in public, also what is called their present-time urban style in public in this book. To each of them, indeed, such a personal, public experience in the city urged, or even pushed, themselves to take something from it for the construction,

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or the reconstruction, of their present-time personal style in public, which is mainly made up of two large components, namely, urban public outlooks and urban public behaviors. As for its domain of urban public outlooks, my respondents emphasized such mindsets, attitudes, and/or emotional state as vigilance, attention to others, indifference, coolness, open-mindedness, kindness or friendliness, the sense of community or trust toward others, personal distance, readiness to self-defense, or a combination of these two or more. As for its domain of urban public behaviors, known as the other component of their present-time urban style in public, many of my respondents stated the importance of their facial expressions, posture, demeanor, or spatial movement or repositioning in certain manners as the result of that particular public experience in the city. As described above, these new forms that have now become an important part of their present-time urban style in public quite differed widely from person to person across each of the nine main themes classified. Despite this fact, when it comes to their present-time urban style in public overall, one thing that is common among all my respondents is their great concerns and willingness to maintain their urban life in public as much routine and normal as possible in the present and even in the future.

Notes 1. For more information, see the official website of Bureau of Justice Statistics: https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tdtp&tid=3 2. Ibid. 3. For more information, see the official website of the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation: https://www.nycgovparks.org/about/ health-­and-­safety-­guide/coronavirus. However, New York State lifted this social distance rule as of June 15, 2021.

References Archer, M. S. (2003). Structure, agency and the internal conversation. Cambridge University Press. Archer, M. S. (2007). Making our way through the world: Human reflexivity and social mobility. Cambridge University Press. Bandura, A. (2001). Social cognition theory: An agentic perspective. Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 1–26. D’Aandrade, R. (1995). The development of cognitive anthropology. Cambridge University Press.

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Emirbayer, M., & Mische, A. (1998). “What is agency?” American Journal of Sociology, 103(4), 962–1023. Gardner, C. B. (1995). Passing by: Gender and public harassment. University of California Press. Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and social identity: Self and society in the late modern age. Stanford University Press. Goffman, E. (1971). Relations in public. Allen Lane. James, W. (1910). Psychology: Briefer course. Henry Holt and Company. Mandler, J. (1984). Stories, scripts, and scenes: Aspects of schema theory. Erlbaum. Markus, H. (1977). Self-schemas and processing information about the self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 63–78. Mead, G. H. ([1934] 1962). Mind, self and society. In C. Morris (Ed.). University of Chicago Press. Rumelhart, D. (1980). Schemata: The building blocks of cognition. In R. Spiro, B.  Bruce, & W.  Brewer (Eds.), Theoretical issues in reading comprehension (pp. 33–58). Routledge.

CHAPTER 7

Conclusion

For more than 20 years, I have been a regular commuter from my home in New Jersey to my college where I teach (Hunter College), which is located at the intersection of East 68th Street and Lexington Avenue in Manhattan, New York City. My morning commute used to take almost 1  hour and 30–40  minutes to arrive at my office in the college. There would be a one-hour bus ride from my town north of New Jersey to the New  York City Port Authority Bus Terminal (PABT), a block west of Times Square, and another of more than 30  minutes in Midtown Manhattan, which is made up of almost 15  minutes to walk and a 15–25-minute ride of two subways from the PABT to Grand Central Terminal to the 68th Hunter College station (the Eastbound 7 and Northbound 6 trains). But, my late afternoon or evening commute to the PABT from my college has not been in the exact opposite directions of my morning commute. I used to take two subways (the Southbound 6 and S trains), a short walk to the S (shuttle) train station at Grand Central Terminal and another short walk back to the PABT. Most often, this whole time of my late afternoon or evening commute up to my NJ bus gate at the PABT would range between 35  minutes and less than an hour. Whenever I had appeared in those public spaces in Midtown Manhattan, I was habitually ready for how to think, perceive, feel, and behave in each of these locations where I was accustomed to seeing, standing on, sitting on, passing by, or interacting accidently with other strangers in the city.

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During these long years of my public life in Midtown Manhattan usually a couple of days a week, the number of my unanticipated public experiences became one of the major causes that helped me reshape my current urban public outlooks and urban public behaviors, jointly known as my present-­ time personalized urban style in public or called their present-time urban style in public in this book. Below, let me briefly describe the three particular public experiences of my own in New York City and these implications for my present-time personalized urban style in public, respectively. At first, an inside subway cart is a kind of public open space where some urban strangers ride together, randomly and temporarily. On a late weekday afternoon almost ten years ago, I rode a shuttle (S) train heading for the PABT from Grand Central Terminal to go back to my home. The approximate time was during the afternoon rush hour, and the middle cart of the shuttle train where I kept standing on was jam-packed with many weary commuters and unsettled tourists. In this crowded train, many people and I couldn’t help but stand on, and at one moment, I sensed that a passenger in the mid- or late 20  s, female and white, standing on with several of her companions, had looked cross-eyed at me. I felt quite uncomfortable about her curious gaze at me. However, what I had thought almost immediately was that if she wouldn’t withdraw her peripheral glance toward me, I should express my recognition of it to her anyway. By the time I still felt her eyes on me, I determined to look straight at her, who had stood less than two or three feet away from me, and all of a sudden, we had almost three to five seconds of eye contact with each other. As my reaction, I looked up at her with a smile, but surprisingly my courtesy returned with her mixed facial expressions of bewilderment and anger. Shocked at her unspoken rejection to my visual courtesy, I turned my whole body around not to meet her eyes again. After experiencing this unwelcoming public occasion, I have tried my best to avoid eye contact with any unacquainted people to come across in the city’s public spaces and, in case I did by chance, to express no facial expressions to them at all. Another unforgettable event I was once encountered with an urban stranger took place inside the building of the PABT almost five years ago. One afternoon that year, I arrived at the PABT to take my return express bus home, entering the public bathroom at the far corner of its first floor. Before getting out of it, I was in less than a minute to wash my hands in one of its three sinks placed in parallel. Until that time, I paid no attention to a person using another sink on the left of me. At the very moment when I intended to turn my upper body slightly to the left to reach a paper towel

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dispenser attached straightly above that sink in order to dry my wet hands, there was a man who was busy shaving his beard in front of that sink. Indeed, his conduct could be considered to be very bizarre to ordinary public bathroom users, and he appeared to be a homeless person as I glimpsed a pushcart, which contained many items such as some clothes, blankets, and other necessities, next to him. To pick up one or two cloths from that paper towel dispenser, I stretched my left arm very closely over to him, and then, abruptly he attempted to wield his straight razor with a sharp blade wildly toward me. Instinctively, I moved my body quickly aside from him to avoid any further confrontation. What a strange and dangerous person he was and he must have been suffering from some mental problems, I thought later, while having walked up to my bus platform. Still, I have continued using this public bathroom from time to time. But whenever I should have used it, I was always concerned about who else was around me in it. However, a half dozen experiences of breaking up my public routines in New York City were not always related to something negative. In 2003, I taught a summer course at my college. This almost two-hour daily summer class was supposed to end in late August. In mid-August that year, I finished my class at 4  in the afternoon. While I had been still spending another 20–30 minutes in school, I could hear of a school announcement about the occurrence of blackout in New York City, and as a result, the shutdown of all the New York-area transportations, including the subways, the NJ Transit buses, and the PATH lines between Manhattan and New Jersey. As soon as I had finished calling my wife to explain this exigency, I decided to walk down to the Lincoln Tunnel west of the PABT in a hope of taking on a New Jersey-bound express bus. As expected, the PABT was completely shut down so that no NJ Transit bus was running. Disappointed, but anyway, I kept walking to the Lincoln Tunnel, lost in thought, and then stood on a corner of the street near it for a while. Unexpectedly, a New Jersey-bound car pulled up alongside me, and its driver in late 20 s rolled down its front passenger’s window and offered me to sit on its back seat. In passing through the Lincoln Tunnel, he asked me my destination, I said to him that it would be great to drop me off at a public parking lot in the town of Edgewater, NJ, and he nodded his head without speaking. When we had finally arrived at my requested area, I expressed my sincere thanks to him for such an act of generosity for me, before getting off his car. Indeed, this positive public experience taught myself what to do for other urban strangers in case they need my help in an emergency.

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With those in mind, my main objective of this book was to present the essence of one’s temporal, subjective experience about an unanticipated public event that took place in one of the New York City public spaces and to emphasize that occasion as a great momentum for that person’s public life in New York City in the present and future. However, this academic subject that such a particular public experience in the city can be really important for their current urban life in public didn’t draw much attention in a broad spectrum of the existing sociological and urban research. To this end, seeking to answer this key question of what the essence of that personal experience—subjectively and situationally both—in one of the city’s public spaces had been was the core of this book. Without knowing it thoroughly and comprehensively, looking to answer the following question of what has been its real implications for their current urban ways of life in general and for their present-time urban style in public in particular seems to be of little importance. From this point on, there existed a phenomenological tradition, both theoretical and methodological, that examines their personal experience in the real world (Husserl, 1983; Heidegger, 1962; Sokolowski, 2000). For the same reason, this approach became the mainstay of my current research on one’s situational, subjective experience about an unanticipated public encounter in New York City on the ground of a self-report (or a self-description). What I had further argued at this point was that this phenomenological approach could be well aligned with the self-concept in attempting to describe “the things themselves” of it that was one’s particular personal experience in one of the New York City public spaces. To put it differently, the term the situated self I had addressed throughout this book became an important notion that integrates the self-­ concept with “the things themselves” of it in a powerful and convincing way, from one’s subjective point of view. More specifically, the term the situated self was largely understood as the temporal, personal world of the self who was faced with an unanticipated public event in one of the city’s public spaces. Indeed, it was tantamount to “a Me of yesterday” that still stays strong in one’s urban public self of today (James, 1910, p. 201). It also signified a specific moment of one’s “being-in-the-word” or a sort of one’s lived experience at an earlier time (Heidegger, 1962). In the same vein, the situated self was the subject as well as the agency. As for the situated self as the subject, it emphasized both the independent and unitary functioning of one’s perceptual-sensory-­ motor system, emotions, personality traits, and one’s cognitive level and process in the situation. On the other hand, relatively, the situated self as

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the agency put great weight on one’s personal attributes capable of operating evaluative judgments, planning a set of adaptive strategies, or ensuring a proper conduct for the self-management during that public event met by chance in the city, separately or together. On the whole, the situated self was the temporal but synthetic being that brings together one’s certain human traits, perceptions, bodily sensations, emotions, cognition, and behavioral reaction, to a greater or lesser degree. During the time of such a public event, it is a general characteristic of the situated self that flowed temporarily from The Situated Self in Public I to The Situated Self in Public II in sequence. In that situational course of it, the phase of The Situated Self in Public I is understood as the experiential domain of the self, usually at its beginning, who activated specific types of one’s perceptions, somatosensory sensations, “nascent consciousness,” and emotions. At first, an abrupt encounter with it amounts to one’s initial observation to its situational setting and the people directly involved in it, with or without one’s functioning of the other types of perceptions, such as auditory, olfactory, and tactile ones. At this early stage of such a public occasion, one’s perceptual opening naturally accompanies some of one’s somatosensory sensations or bodily reactions instinctively—for example, faster heartbeat, nervousness, lump in throat, or sweaty palms. At the same time, another change in one’s inner world arises, as well. It is one’s “nascent consciousness” that reflects an instantaneous assessment, devoid of any deliberate evaluation, about one’s situational setting and the people directly involved in it. Thus, this internal state of the self at the time is to intuit what’s going on here, who is being involved directly or indirectly in it, and/or what has already happened to oneself or another in the situation. At last, the culmination of The Situated Self in Public I comes from the elicitation of one’s emotions. In general, there exist three distinctive types of emotions: (1) knowledge emotions such as uncertainty, confusion, and surprise, (2) hostile emotions such as anger, contempt, and disgust, and (3) self-conscious emotions such as embarrassment, shame, and pride (Silvia, 2009).1 In fact, the large majority of my respondents underwent multiple emotions within each of the first two types of emotions or across both types of emotions in the situation, while the rest of my respondents went through some emotions that intersect the first and the third types of emotions. When facing or observing such a particular public event in the city, one’s evocation of certain emotions was also the time of awakening the specifics of one’s personal orientations, one large domain of which represents the private character of the self, such as individual-level

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well-being, choice, and liberty, and the other domain of which corresponds to the collective nature of the self, such as ingroup membership, the welfare of others, social norms, social order, and hierarchy (Graham et al., 2009; Haidt & Graham, 2007; Shweder et al., 1997). One’s emotional experience itself, at this phase of The Situated Self in Public I, plays another important role, that is, the turning point of the self who enters oneself naturally into The Situated Self in Public II. In other words, one’s emotional arousal in the situation becomes a driving force for one’s cognitive appraisals what I also called “the reflexive consciousness,” and/or for one’s behavioral reaction to manage the eliciting event or to deal with someone directly involved in it on their own. In other words, the three major components of The Situated Self in Public II are human emotions, “the reflexive consciousness,” and coping behavior. Literately speaking, for one thing, one’s situational emotions affect the degree of two closely linked cognitive appraisals (situational monitoring and careful deliberation), and for another, this inner stream of consciousness (“the reflexive consciousness”) has a direct influence on the activation, or otherwise, the deactivation, of coping behavior (e.g., physical movement, verbal response, facial or bodily deportment) for the sake of the situational self-­ management. As for “the reflexive consciousness,” one’s situational monitoring is an initial step to draw one’s deliberation that coincides with situational assessment with a reflective stance. Moreover, in this phase of The Situated Self in Public II, one’s cognitive activity, known here as “the reflexive consciousness,” quite differs from the functioning of the “nascent consciousness” (or the “primary appraisal”) in the phase of The Situated Self in Public I. As stressed in Chap. 3, one’s situational stage of the “nascent consciousness” has to do with merely a quick moment of pure instinct or intuition, without critical reflection, and this also arises automatically in connection with one’s opening perceptional senses and physiological sensations at the time when one ran across suddenly with such an unanticipated public event in the city. For each of my respondents, the situated self was the temporal and subjective world of one’s own as either one of the victims (or one of the targets) or one of the bystanders (or one of the onlookers, passersby, or observers, or one of the companions) on the occurrence of such a public event in the city. By and large, this second phase of the situated self pays close attention to the nexus of one’s cognitive appraisals (e.g., situational monitoring and conscious deliberation) and coping behavior either or both of which can materialize only after one’s emotional arousal in the

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situation. After all, in my study, there existed the five different groups of public victims, actual or potential: vigilant agents, instinctive defenders, situational receptors, situational escapers, and fractured agents. Each of them, as addressed in Chap. 4, needs a brief overview here again. At first, the group of vigilant agents were characteristic of careful monitors, thoughtful assessors, and judicious actors in the wake of negative emotions during the troubled public encounter in the city. Another group of public victims, instinctive defenders, generally fell short of the functioning of “the reflexive consciousness” (e.g., monitoring and deliberation), but were impulsive—not prudent—actors for the situational self-management. Thirdly, the group of situational receptors were those who put a halt to both “the reflexive consciousness” and coping behavior due to their overwhelming, negative emotions in the situation. The fourth group of public victims, situational escapers, were instant or automatic actors who were less inclined, or who couldn’t intentionally afford, to monitor and evaluate the development of the situation they faced, more carefully and thoroughly. Unlike instinctive defenders, their behavioral patterns were usually self-protective far from aggressive against their assailants. Lastly, the group of fractured agents took on situational standing very similar to that of situational receptors especially in the aspect of the pause for any adaptive behavior. But, some of them held relatively good situational consciousness, while others activated situational monitoring only, devoid of their situational deliberation. Of my respondents, there were also another large group of people who had been positioned to take on the primary role of one of the bystanders on the occurrence of a public event they observed or faced unanticipatedly in the city. As stated in Chap. 5, they could be classified into one of the five bystander groups in the context of the interplay between “the reflexive consciousness” (e.g., monitoring and deliberation) and coping behavior either or both of which were initially affected from their situational emotions at the time: situational observers, situational stayers, situational regulars, situational avoiders, and situational participants. One general feature of situational observers was that they were careful inspectors about its situational development, but fell short of both their deliberate planning and the performance of any public conduct to deal with it on their own. The second group of bystanders were situational stayers who were also a sort of situational onlookers with their lack of both the conscious deliberation and a proper behavioral response. A factor that actually distinguished them from situational observers was their relatively stronger emotional

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intensity than the latter felt. As the third group of bystanders, situational regulars kept a firm hold on a reflective stance (e.g., monitoring and deliberation) that also guided themselves proper coping behavior. Relatively, then, the group of situational avoiders were the so-called quick or defensive actors because of too great an emotional pressure at the time, despite the fact that they could monitor the situational process relatively well. The fifth and last group of bystanders were situational participants who were situational actors, prudent or hasty, in the midst of the public encounter or soon after its termination. Prior to their drive for any situational action or participation, some of them underwent either or both of cognitive monitoring and deliberation, but some didn’t. In many ways, this new concept of the situated self contributes to the broader fields of sociology, ethnography, psychology, philosophy, and urban studies. At first, this term is valuable in studying any type of one’s urban experiences that include public harassment, racism, crime, rudeness, kindness, panhandling, exhibition, conversation, or filthiness. Second, this term is very suitable for the in-depth study of a negative experience (Gardner, 1995; Smith et  al., 2010), as well as for the analysis of any attention-grabbing or positive experience that occurred in public space (e.g., a public performance, a helping hand). Third, the term the situated self was a temporal mode of one’s being in the everyday world that has the same connotation as being there for a while with one’s emerging concern about something or oneself (Heidegger, 1962, pp. 403–408). In a narrow sense, it was one’s particular personal experience—that is, one’s existential situatedness—that occurred at a specific spot of one of the city’s public spaces (Ash & Simpson, 2016; Larsen & Johnson, 2012). But more importantly, it lays a foundation on a comprehensive approach to the entity of a human experience. For one thing, it epitomizes both the distinct and unified launch of human perceptions, physiological sensations, emotions, cognition, and behavioral patterns within one’s temporality of such a “real-world” experience. Of these constituent units of the situated self, human perceptions are always at issue to make oneself start its construction process. For another, more importantly, it integrates all the relationships between human perceptions and body (Merleau-Ponty, 1962), human emotions and cognition (Burkitt, 2012; Cooley, 1902; Holmes, 2010; Tiedens & Linton, 2001), emotions and adaptive behavior (Hochschild, 1983; Phillips & Smith, 2004; Raghunathan et al., 2006), and emotions, cognition, and coping behavior (Burkitt, 2012; Mills & Kleinman, 1988) during such a situational encounter. In essence, the

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situated self is the personal experience that engenders “a train of sensations, emotions, decisions, movements, classifications, expectations” (James, 1912, p. 13). In principle, this phenomenological approach to the situated self underlines “the identification of time-space rhythms of some form” in the real course of that temporal, “real-world,” and subjective experience (Relph et al., 1977). Fourth, coping behavior, as a constituent unit of the situated self, includes verbal (Hewett & Hall, 1973; Scott & Lyman, 1968; Stokes & Hewett, 1976) and/or facial or bodily reactions as ways to manage themselves such an unanticipated or problematic public encounter. Fifth, the situated self also elucidates the details and general characteristics of a human relationship during that situational time (Goffman, 1971, 1974). Lastly, a first-person report (or a self-account) on the essence of the situated self is another strength of this new concept as a third-person report (e.g., a researcher’s report) is barely possible to describe such a personal experience unbiasedly and accurately, regardless of whether both parties have grown up in the same cultural community. Thus, each of us would experience the world or a phenomenon like a public encounter in a much different fashion. As another point relating to this, the passage of time is not much an issue as long as such a public experience in the city was one of their very traumatic, frightening, or attention-­ grabbing experiences in their urban life. Besides, such a public occasion, upon a first-person report, was also commonly a novel (e.g., alarming or amazing) experience for most of my respondents more than 70% of whom were in the age range of 18–24 and almost 90% of whom under age 35. By the same token, for most of my respondents, such a personal experience in one of the New York City public spaces must be a force to shape their present-time urban style in public in the light of their relatively short history of public life in the city over their local neighborhoods or elsewhere, as well as in consideration of their relatively good capacity for remembering it. In past studies, this important theme that addresses the relationship between an individual urban experience in public (i.e., the situated self ) and its conspicuous upshot in one’s urban life in public, both at the present time and in the future, was of little interest (Anderson, 1999; Caitlin, 2000; Goffman, 1971, 1974; Lofland, 1989; Milgram, 1970; Simmel, 1964). Therefore, in this book, I also tried to delve into the ramification of the situated self in one’s urban public self of today. This linkage is inevitable as the “present” self has the personal aptitudes that reflect on oneself, that react to some of one’s own past experiences (here, the situated self ), and that look ahead and plan for the future (Bandura,

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2001). In much the same sense, one’s urban public self of today appropriates something of one’s urban public self of yesterday oneself as far as it is considered under the purview of one’s personal interests, attitudes, or concerns (Epstein, 1973; Schutz, 1967). Indeed, the former—here, one’s urban public self of today—has a natural capacity to embrace that particular personal experience (the situated self ), in whole or in part, for one’s public life in the city at the present (Emirbayer & Mische, 1998). To put it in another way, the situated self becomes one of the vital constituents of one’s urban public self of today, which is what I called their present-time urban style in public. Despite this fact, it should be also noted that the situated self is only one of the numerous sources of their present-time urban style in public, which is broadly understood as one’s cohesive personal principles and standards on public outlooks, attitudes, behaviors, and public relationships with others in the city. In his book of Outline of a Theory of Practice, Pierre Bourdieu (1977, pp. 72, 95) introduced the concept of habitus that is defined as “a system of lasting, transposable dispositions which, integrating past experiences, functions at every moment as a matrix of perceptions, appreciations, and actions.” This concept of habitus is to organizational fields while the term their present-time urban style in public is to the New York City public spaces. In general, this term of their present-time urban style in public at the individual level is a confluence of the human cognitive, motivational, emotional, and corporeal systems of knowledge and experiences that can ultimately not only make themselves keep carrying out their urban routines in public but also provide themselves a set of situational elastic strategies in a case of possible exposure to their unexpected encounter with a public event in the city. Otherwise, this term their present-time urban style in public is somewhat compatible with the concept of Bordieu’s habitus— or a kind of “feel for the game”—in the loose, unaffiliated field of the city’s public spaces, that is, their perceptual, affective, and mental dispositions and bodily orientations to perform their daily routines or manage any public relationships with others in the city (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, pp. 15–26). Besides, these two concepts also have another similar point that stresses both the reflective and agentic capacities of the self. In these two similar areas about the self, however, the concept of habitus is very confined to one’s status and responsibility in an organizational field, while the term their present-time urban style in public leaves one’s public status in the city blurred or unaccountable. In his book of Frame Analysis, Goffman also introduced the concept of primary frameworks (or frames)

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concerning a particular event, which is akin to the term their present-time urban style in public. But, the part of adaptive behavior was left out in his concept of primary frameworks (or frames), that is, schemata (or schemas) of interpretation for its user “to locate, perceive, identify, and label” the organization of experience (Goffman, 1974, p. 21). As demonstrated in Chap. 6, overall, many of my respondents made clear that the situated self of their own was critical to construct or reinforce some of their current urban public outlooks, such as vigilance, attention to others, indifference, self-engagement, openness (or open-mindedness), thoughtfulness, thankfulness, kindness (or friendliness), readiness to self-­ defense, and so forth. Likewise, a large number of my respondents also viewed the situated self of their own as being key to embracing and enacting some of their current urban public behaviors, such as spatial repositioning or distance, self-involvement with the use of props, avoidance, a short or cool reaction, and so on. In short, each of my respondents is one of ordinary New Yorkers who commonly has the situated self of their own and makes use of it in navigating their present-time public life in the city. In a broad sense, any ordinary New Yorker absorbs the situated self into their present-time urban style in public, to a greater or lesser degree (Abrahams, 1986). What this implies indeed is that their own experience of the situated self necessarily becomes an important kind of self-reference to their present-time public life in New York City. This continued spillover of one’s particular “real-world” experience—the situated self that materialized on an unanticipated public event in the city—to one’s urban public self of today is what I attempted to make sense theoretically and methodologically throughout this book.

Note 1. As a feeling of fear can arise from a sense of situational uncertainty or surprise, fear can be also included in the category of knowledge emotions.

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Index1

A Adaptive behavior, 195, 196, 199 Agency, 11–13 Auditory, olfactory, and tactile perceptions, 70 B Behavioral orientation, 132 Behavioral reaction, 97, 100, 107, 113, 116, 117, 119, 122, 124, 125, 126n3, 193, 194 Behavioral response, 132, 145, 148, 158 Behaviors, 5, 7, 8, 10, 13, 24 Being-in-the-word, 3 Bodily decorum, 8 Bodily practices, 145 Bodily presentation, 132, 145 Body, 190, 196 Body language, 8 Bureau of Justice Statistics, 46, 47, 63n1, 63n2, 63n3

C City life, 1, 2, 10, 11 Civic inattention, 4 Civil inattention, 161 The code of the street, 5 Cognition, 8, 14, 193, 196 Cognitive activity, 131 Cognitive appraisals, 194 Cognitive deliberation, 132, 133, 137, 138 Cognitive engagement, 9 Cognitive process/cognitive processing, 97, 113, 119, 120, 129, 131 The collective nature of the self, 16, 67, 68, 71, 91 Conscious deliberation, 132, 136, 148, 152 Coping behavior, 98, 99, 101, 116, 194–196 Corporeal body, 14 The COVID-19 pandemic, 42, 44, 170

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J.-H. Oh, A Public Encounter in New York City, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30964-9

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INDEX

D Dissociation, 163, 170, 174

G Grand Central Terminal, 189, 190

E Emotional arousal, 9, 16, 25, 71, 73, 83, 84, 91–93, 129, 130, 132, 136, 151, 158 Emotional elicitation, 136 Emotional experience, 98, 101, 113, 117, 123, 130, 136, 145, 148 Emotions, 3, 8, 11–14, 17, 20, 25, 26, 69, 70, 73, 78, 81, 86, 89–92, 93n5, 93n6, 97–101, 106–109, 111, 112, 115, 116, 119, 122–125, 125n1, 126n4, 192–196, 199n1 The ethic of care, 67 The ethic of justice, 67 The ethics of autonomy, 15, 66 The ethics of community, 16, 67 Evaluation (or evaluative practices), 36, 39, 164 Evaluative judgment (or deliberation), 145 Exploitation (or exploitative practices), 35, 164

H Habitus, 198 Hostile emotions, 193 Human autonomy, 71–73, 77, 79, 88, 90, 91 Human community, 67, 71, 79, 82, 84, 87, 88, 90, 91 Human emotions, 196 Human intersectionality, 72, 88, 90, 91 Human perceptions, 65, 70, 72, 97, 196 Human reflexivity, 12 Human remembering, 11 Hunter College, vii, 189

F Feel for the game, 198 A first-person account (or a self-­ report), 9 A first-person point of view, 2, 5, 9, 17, 18, 26 A first-person report (or a self-­ account), 197 Fractured agents, 17, 26, 100, 101, 119, 120, 122–124, 133, 140, 159, 195

I Indifference, 161, 163, 166, 170, 175, 180, 186 Individual’s rights, justice, and life (no harm), 15 Informal rules and norms, 174 Instinctive defenders, 17, 26, 100, 101, 108, 109, 111, 112, 116, 119, 124, 159, 195 Intrusive sounds, 8 K Knowledge emotions, 193 L Long-term residents, 1, 11, 161

 INDEX 

M Midtown Manhattan, 189 Moral feelings, 69 Moral identity, 16 Moral judgement, 67 Movement and space management, 8 Mugging, 46 My respondents (one of its victims or bystanders), 38 N Nascent consciousness, 9, 14, 20, 25, 65, 69, 70, 72–74, 76, 79, 87, 91, 92, 97, 99, 126n2, 193, 194 New York City, vii, 1, 2, 6, 11–13, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 33–63, 63n4, 65–93, 94n9, 94n13, 97–125, 129–159, 161–186, 186n3, 189, 191, 192, 197–199 The New York City Port Authority Bus Terminal (PABT), 189 The New York City Transit Authority (MTA), 50, 63n4 New Yorkers, vii, 4, 20 O Offensive racist languages, 42, 43 One of its bystanders, 6, 12, 168 One of its initiators, 6 One of its targets, 6, 12 One of its victims, 168 One of the bystanders (or one of the onlookers, passersby, or observers, or one of the companions), 129, 130, 133, 137, 143, 150–152, 159, 159n2, 194 One of the victims (or one of the targets), 194 One’s situational, subjective experience, 192

205

Other perceptual operations, such as auditory, olfactory, and tactile ones, 14 P Perceptional senses, 194 Perceptions, 193, 196, 198 Perceptual attentiveness, 69 Personal orientations, 9, 15, 16, 25, 26, 65–73, 79, 87, 88, 91, 92, 97, 129, 131, 158, 160n3, 193 Personal safety, 98, 100, 112 Phenomenological approach, 192, 197 Phenomenological method, 18 Phenomenological perspective, 8 Phenomenology, 7, 8, 10, 18, 27n1 Physical attack, 41, 46 Physical or social distance, 161 Physiological emotions, 9, 65, 71, 72, 79, 92, 97 Physiological sensations, 71, 73, 87, 92, 194, 196 Primary appraisal, 70, 87 The private character of the self, 15, 25, 66, 68, 71, 91 A problematic or challenging event, 108, 112, 129 Public begging, 55 Public conversation, 59, 61, 63, 183, 184 Public crime, 48, 58, 171 Public exhibition, 58, 59, 63, 181–183 Public filthiness, 61, 63, 184, 185 Public harassment, 6, 23, 25, 34–37, 39–41, 48, 50, 55, 58, 62, 164–169, 173, 176, 179 Public incivility, 8 Public kindness, 52, 55, 63, 176, 177, 179 Public panhandling, 55, 58, 179

206 

INDEX

Public racism, 41, 42, 44, 45, 168–171, 173 Public rudeness, 48–50, 55, 173–176, 179 Public spaces, 1, 2, 4–6, 8, 11–14, 17, 18, 20, 22, 24–26, 33, 38–43, 45–55, 57–60, 62, 65, 69, 72, 75, 77, 80, 82, 85–87, 90–92, 129, 133, 148, 158, 159, 161–165, 167, 168, 171–173, 176, 178, 179, 181, 183, 185 Public victims (or targets), 98, 100, 101 R Racist gestures, 41, 44, 168, 170 Racist remarks, 168 Reflective subjects, 130 The reflexive consciousness, 99, 105, 130, 145, 194, 195 Regular commuters, 1, 2, 11, 18, 161 S Schemas or schemata, 162 Self-concept, 192 Self-conscious emotions, 193 Self-engagement, 163, 181 Self-introspection, 131, 136, 140, 160n3 Self-involvement, 34, 65, 161, 163, 178, 180, 184 Self-management, 140 Self-reflection, 2, 10 Self-reported cases, 34–36, 38, 40, 41, 52, 53, 55–57, 61 A self-report (or a self-description/or self-account), 3, 192 Sensory and physiological systems, 14

The situated self, 3, 8, 10, 13, 17, 18, 20, 22, 23, 25, 26, 34, 63, 65, 70, 92, 93, 97, 98, 123, 125n1, 129, 130, 133, 158, 159, 159n1, 160n3, 161–163, 192–194, 196, 197, 199 The Situated Self in Public I, 65–93, 93n6, 97, 99, 126n2, 129–131, 158, 193, 194 The Situated Self in Public II, 97–125, 126n2, 129–159, 193, 194 Situational actors, 131–133, 140, 145, 158 Situational assessment, 194 Situational avoiders, 17, 26, 130, 132, 133, 148, 150, 151, 158, 195 Situational consciousness, 99, 104–106, 112, 115, 117, 119, 123 Situational development, 66, 70, 131, 132, 139, 140, 148, 152, 158 Situational emotions, 97, 98, 101, 108, 117, 126n3 A situational encounter, 196 Situational escapers, 17, 26, 100, 101, 116, 117, 119, 124, 132, 150, 159, 195 Situational judgment (or deliberation), 104 Situationally-induced perceptions, 9 Situational monitoring, 98, 104, 108, 113, 115, 120, 124, 126n2, 129, 130, 133, 136, 138, 140, 144, 145, 147, 152, 158, 160n3 and careful deliberation, 194 and conscious deliberation, 194 and deliberation, 17, 129, 138, 158 Situational observers, 17, 26, 130, 131, 133, 136–140, 158, 195 Situational participants, 17, 26, 130, 133, 151, 152, 155, 158, 195 Situational plans, 137, 148

 INDEX 

Situational process, 132, 133, 136, 138, 139, 148, 152 Situational receptors, 17, 26, 100, 101, 112, 113, 115, 116, 119, 124, 159, 195 Situational regulars, 17, 26, 130, 133, 145–148, 158, 159, 195, 196 Situational self-management, 129, 132, 143, 194, 195 Situational stayers, 17, 26, 130, 131, 133, 140, 143, 144, 158, 195 The 68th Hunter College station, 189 Social norms, 16 Somatosensory sensations, 65, 69, 70, 93n6, 193 Street literacy, 5 Subjective consciousness, 97, 98, 100, 104, 105, 108, 117, 120, 124, 125 Subjective situational management, 104 T The temporal, personal world of the self, 192 A temporal, subjective experience, 8 Their own subjective point of view, 9 Their particular public experience in New York City, 161 Their present-time urban style in public, vii, 1–3, 5, 9–11, 13, 18, 20, 22, 26, 34, 161–165, 168–177, 179, 180, 182, 183, 185, 190, 192, 197–199 Their temporal, subjective experience, 161 The things themselves, 3, 9, 18

207

A third-person report (e.g., a researcher’s report), 197 Times Square, 189 Tolerance, 161 U An unanticipated encounter, 65 An unanticipated or problematic event, 33 An unanticipated or problematic public encounter, 197 An unanticipated or problematic public event in the city, 2 An unanticipated public event, vii, 130, 133, 140, 145, 151, 152, 155, 159, 192, 194, 199 Urbanism, 26 Urban problems, 26 Urban public behaviors, vii, 1, 13, 20, 26, 34, 159, 161, 163, 165–168, 170–172, 174, 176, 178–181, 183, 185, 186, 190, 199 Urban public outlooks, vii, 1, 13, 20, 26, 34, 159, 161, 163, 164, 166–172, 174–183, 185, 186, 190, 199 Urban ways of life, 26 V Values, 67, 68, 80, 93n4 Vigilance, 161, 163–170, 172, 174, 175, 177, 178, 180–186 Vigilant agents, 17, 26, 98, 100, 101, 104–106, 108, 109, 116, 117, 119, 124, 145, 159, 195 Visual perception, 69, 70, 92