"Those people" and troubles talk social typing and community construction in senior public housing.

1. Introduction

Social typing is a very ordinary activity. As Alfred Schutz (1967, 1970) viewed it, it is part and parcel of everyday life, not just something that sociologists engage in, which was Weber's perspective. Social typing is a way of sharing with others the common sense of personal actions. For example, when we say that a particular activity is the "typical" behavior one sees in a specific group of people, it turns these actions into a general category of action, something into which other activities could be placed.

Everyday, mundane experience is interpreted through an individual's knowledge of the world around him or her, and the ability to cognitively place behaviors into ideal type constructions, or "typifications," as Schutz termed them. These ideal types form the basis for the ability of the individual to recognize and place other persons into typical, known, categories based on behavior, action, characteristics, and motives. Schutz explains that "all forms of recognition and identification, even of real objects of the outer world, are based on a generalized knowledge of the type of these objects or of the typical style in which they manifest themselves" (Schutz, 1970, pp. 118-119). Heritage (1984), referring to Schutz's phenomenological sociology, presents a similar argument, suggesting that, "Actor's [social] type constructs are the (revisable) yardsticks in terms of which their experience of the world is organized and upon which they must rely in order to make sense of a world in which they must act" (p. 52).

Here I am concerned with the role that social types play in the construction of community in a senior public housing neighborhood called Shady Grove. Everyday social typing regarding personal troubles is prevalent in Shady Grove. My view is that these social types, constructed around troubles, are an important ingredient in community formation. In Shady Grove, social types arise out of the commonly discussed troubles of the residents, talk of which builds its community. It is this talk, or "troubles talk," that forms the very anchor around which the types common to the neighborhood are constituted.

However, the types are not simply there as preexisting categories, but are continually called into existence in talk and social interaction among residents. To phrase it differently, the typical is mobilized. By engaging each other in conversation, residents discuss, organize, and artfully articulate social typifications common to the neighborhood. In doing so, residents express varied views on the types, artfully constructing the very existence of the types indigenous to The Grove, and applying them in ways that produce and give meaning to the behavior and action of other Grovers. Each of the common social types of Shady Grove are recognizable subjects of troubles talk by residents. As the Grovers talk of each other, there is a recognition of the common subjects which trouble them and the behaviors that constitute the subjects under discussion.

In Shady Grove, the use of social types serves as a means through which residents specify shared identities by establishing comparison structures. The social types become ways of interpreting and categorizing the normal activities of Shady Grove residents, typifying particular identities and artfully constructing the normal, typical form. As Gubrium and Holstein (1997) note, "categorization devices ... present commonsense models for depicting what culturally known types of people are like, and how members of such categories may be expected to behave" (p. 142).

Grover types provide a commonsense means through which comparisons can be made between residents and expectations ordered. If one is thought to be of a particular social type, then the device is used to give order and coherence to particular actions vis-a-vis the actions of other specific social types. In doing this, "standard pattern rules" of behavior are applied in anticipation of distinct actions by specified types (Smith, 1987).