%0 Journal Article
%T Going Out: A Sociology of Public Outings
%A David Trouille
%A Michael DeLand
%J Sociological Theory
%@ 1467-9558
%D 2018
%R 10.1177/0735275118759149
%X In this article we propose a framework for description and analysis of public life by treating ¡°outings¡± as a unit of sociological analysis. Studying outings requires bracketing a concern with bounded places and isolated encounters. Instead, descriptions of outings track people as they organize trips ¡°out,¡± including their preparations, turning points, and post hoc reflections. We emphasize how people understand and contextualize their time in public by linking situated moments of public life to the outing¡¯s unfolding trajectory and to people¡¯s biographical circumstances. We treat outings in and through public parks as a strategic site to show the utility of studying public outings more generally. A sociology of outings has broad theoretical and methodological implications for how we understand the collective patterning of public life and inequality in everyday encounters
%K public space
%K public parks
%K interaction
%K inequality
%K ethnography
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0735275118759149