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

This book examines the essence of a particular personal experience within a New York City public space. The principal approach, both theoretical and methodological, is the phenomenological perspective, an in-depth study of such a surprising experience in the real world from the first-person point of view. The book introduces a new concept of “the situated self,” that is, the whole entity of the respondent’s subjective world about his or her particular urban experience in public. It is one’s “being-in-the-word” or lived experience in the real world. Another important feature of “the situated self” is its comprehensive constitution of all certain human traits, perceptions, emotions, bodily sensations, cognition, and behavioral reaction, and their close situational connectivity to one another. By implication, this public experience of “the situated self” is a common denominator shared among regular users of New York City public spaces for making their city life with urban strangers more routinized, predictable, tolerant, and civic.

Dr. Joong-Hwan Oh is Professor of Sociology at Hunter College of The City University of New York. He is the author of Examining the Use of Online Social Networks by Korean Graduate Students: Navigating Intercultural Academic Experiences (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 (2016). He also co-edited five books that pertain to some Korean communities around the world.