Paper short abstract:

As outdoor smoking in public is increasingly regulated, I conceive how the continued and patterned presence of discarded cigarette stubs and packets act as forms of everyday sensory resistance by smokers to the new cultural hegemonic norms of non-smoking

Paper long abstract:

While smokers believe that they are increasingly marginalised as many public spaces are 'claimed' by non-smokers (Bell et al 2010, Bell 2013) and smokers report that they feel expected to govern their smoking and act as considerate smokers in public places, there remain visible and tangible evidence of smokers' continued presence in public spaces. Discarded cigarette packets and stubs (also called buts or stumps) are still found in many cities where tobacco control policies have regulated indoor smoking. Their existence in places where bins and receptacles are located for people who smoke suggests an intention by smokers to leave a trace of their activity that goes beyond the merely careless or expedient jettisoning of 'litter'. These sensory markers of smoking often cluster to effectively signal the locations of 'safe sites' where other smokers can and do smoke: locations that may otherwise be largely invisible in the urban landscape and so remain undisturbed and unchallenged by non-smokers. More fragmented trails also exist in city streets and gutters, witnessing the ambulatory smokers' passing and effectively extending and amplifying the largely invisible act of smoking in the open air. By tracking the patterns and presence of discarded packets and stubs I position their presence as a form of everyday sensory resistance whereby smokers resist the rising cultural hegemony of non-smoking ideologies in urban spaces (Scott, 1985, 1993).