Lone urbanites create private space through body management rather than by changing place

Evidence

Yet city dwellers often have occasion to venture out alone (or, with one or two others, but we shall concentrate mainly on the loner) into the world of strangers-into the public space of the urban settlement. Surely, if there is any urbanite who cannot “avoid” the city, who is incapable of privatizing its public space, it is this lone individual. But no, even in this situation, there are things that can be done. (In fact, most of the instructing in “how to act” in the city, discussed in Chapter Five, is precisely instructing in how to act under these circumstances.) The lone individual cannot transform the character of public space. He can, however, transform the character of his social psychological relationship to that space. By utilizing body management-by controlling gestures, facial expressions, movements, and so on-the individual can create around himself a symbolic shield of privacy. He can, that is, move through public space in such a way as to make himself as inconspicuous as possible, while simultaneously communicating to anyone who might happen to look that he is definitely not open to interaction. — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 829

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• DEFINE: Introduces body management as the core mechanism of the symbolic shield of privacy—a key technical term for the chapter.
• XREF: Connects to Simmel’s blasé attitude and Goffman’s civil inattention—the lone observer’s self-erasure as defense against sensory overload. Also core to the reader’s cross-reading of Cole’s isolation of the observer.

Related

• Urbanites symbolically transform public space into private space to reduce stranger contact (similarity 0.84)
• Urban privacy is secured by erasing visible individuality from one’s body (similarity 0.82)
• Urban avoidance demands sophisticated social skills, an irony of city life (similarity 0.80)
• Urban avoidance and urban adventuring are contrasting behavioral poles of city life (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• The skill urbanites develop for public navigation is deployed defensively to avoid others #expands (0.65) — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 869
• Modern urbanites defuse situational ignorance by avoiding unprepared places #corroborates (0.60) — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 653
• Hostile society alienates the colonized subject from his own body #complicates (0.55)
• The hardest part of urban adventuring is the initial step into public space #qualifies (0.50) — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 930