Contested Relational Packages in Interactions Between Panhandlers and Pedestrians

• In Event: 118 - Section on Economic Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 11. Fine Tuning Zelizer: Relational Work and Circuits

Abstract

This paper investigates interactions between panhandlers and pedestrians as a site of contested relational packages, or what Mears refers to as “relational mismatches” (Mears 2015). I interview panhandlers and pedestrians in New York City and conduct observations of their interactions. Panhandlers who provide services like door holding and entertainment while asking for money recast their relationships with those who give as akin to market exchange or gift exchange, actively resisting the image of an undignified and lazy panhandler. Interviews with middle and upper class pedestrians about panhandlers’ service provision suggest that many resist this behavior on the grounds that it prevents from feeling as if they performed a generous act done of their own volition. I argue that both panhandlers and pedestrians seek to combine relations, transactions and media in ways that match desired understandings of self, and reject or resist relational packages in interaction that undermine existing or desired self-images.

Author

• Mary Patrick, NYU