The fleeting moment and the long haul in urban panhandling

Abstract

Sociological writings on panhandling have depicted protracted donor relationships as one of panhandlers’ surest paths to an income, while portraying the fleetingness of one-off appeals as a major barrier. In this article, I recast fleetingness as a facilitator of panhandlers’ fundamental task: trying to seem worthy of aid without attracting unwanted legal attention. Using participant-observation data from a Chicago neighborhood, I outline two favorable elements of fleetingness: it allows panhandlers to evoke sorrowful compassion only for a moment, denying passersby the chance to get stuck in the feeling; and grants passersby only a brief period to evaluate the candor of panhandlers’ appeals. Together, these limit potential givers’ deliberative capacity—their capacity to determine that the panhandlers before them are bothersome, intimidating, deceitful, censurable, or the like. Protracted time horizons still matter, but primarily insofar as panhandlers work continuously, and collectively, to uphold the neighborhood conditions that enable their fleeting appeals.