Rude Strangers in Public: Results of the first ever systematic study of everyday incivility
23. April 2009
Prof. Dr. Philip Smith
Abstract
The talk explores the cluster's theme of ‘social integration’ by looking not to texts and institutions, but rather to the interaction order. It reports the findings from a major national survey in Australia conducted by the speaker and a colleague. This looked at experiences of interpersonal encounters with rude strangers in public places. Incivility is a theme often mentioned with concern by politicians and popular commentators. It is also touched on by criminologists and by major theorists like Putnam, Bauman, Sennett and Goffman. There is a lot of talk relative to the size of the knowledge base. The study benchmarks and theorises in a systematic way for the first time:
- the nature, social causes and distribution of unpleasant meetings with unknown others;
- the action and emotion sequences involved; and it also reviews and critiques
- strategies for building civility and polite behavior.
23. April 2009, 16 Uhr s.t.
Kulturwissenschaftliches Kolleg Konstanz
Otto-Adam-Str. 5
78467 Konstanz
Ansprechpartner
Fred Girod
fred.girod[at]uni-konstanz.de
Tel. 07531-36304-11