The political chaff from the economic grain? Rhetorical accounts of the embeddedness of begging

Abstract

The idea that economic activities may be described and studied as ‘embedded’ in social relations has been central to much debate in recent economic sociology. The present paper analyses legal struggles over the status of begging in US law and argues that conflicting rhetorical accounts of begging illustrate social actors’ efforts to articulate the interconnectedness of their social world, including the ways in which economic practices are embedded in their social and institutional contexts. The paper thus suggests that embeddedness is not just something identified by social researchers, but also a problem faced by social actors as they try to understand the socio-economic order in which they live and act. By arguing for or against the claim that begging is simultaneously an economic action and the exercise of the right to freedom of expression, the voices in this debate attempted to affect the future of this marginal economic activity.

Keywords:

• argument
• begging
• economic sociology
• embeddedness
• free speech
• rhetoric

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Uffe Juul Jensen, Nigel Pleasants, Mikkel Thorup, Ameli Holloh, Antje Gimmler, Morten Raffnsøe-Møller, Patrik Aspers and three anonymous reviewers at Economy and Society for giving helpful comments to earlier versions of this paper. I would also like to acknowledge the financial support from Aarhus University Research Fund that I received during part of the work on the paper.

Notes

1. Although some have seen the metaphor as overly restrictive and unhelpful (see Barry & Slater, 2002; Çalişkan & Callon, 2009).

2. The following cases are collected together in list form by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty: see Challenges to anti-begging and anti-panhandling laws (2010). This organization's case summaries have been used in the following accounts. In the next subsection (3.3.), however, the relevant judges’ opinions have been consulted for those cases discussed in more detail.

3. In what follows I have included the full case citations in order to allow the reader to distinguish between quotations from the District Court and those from the Appeal Court.

4. This was in line with (the now repealed) New York Penal Law § 240.35(1), which banned ‘loitering for the purposes of begging’.

5. ‘Although our holding today does not ultimately rest on an ontological distinction between speech and conduct, we think this case presents a particularly poignant example of how the distinction subsists in right reason and coincides with common sense.’ (Young, 903 F.2d at 154 [1990], emphasis added)

6. It should be pointed out that the present reconstruction of the arguments in the judges’ opinions has highlighted only the more general issues at the expense of the more specific and technical ones. One point that is worth noting, however, is that in the Loper case it was significant that parks and sidewalks were deemed ‘traditional public forums’ and so activity there warranted a high degree of First Amendment protection.

7. For examples from major newspapers see: Ceol, 1990; Douglas, 1990; Hevesi, 1992; Hodges, 1990; Squitieri & Mauro, 1990.

8. Austin distinguished between statements that perform a social action and statements that describe a state of affairs in the world. Unfortunately for the argument of this legal commentator, Austin ends his book by abolishing the dichotomy in favour of a view of all speech as performative (Austin, 1975, chapter XII).