Familiarity as a Practical Sense of Place

Familiarity is an elusive concept, capturing what we know intimately and only recognize from having seen before. This article aims to disambiguate these interpretations by proposing a sociological conceptualization of familiarity as dynamic relationship the world that develops over time through experience allows one progressively disattend appears “usual.” Focusing on how urban environments their human entities become familiar stop being familiar, I propose be thought ongoing relational interactional achievement, allowing us focus our daily activities while relying practical knowledge surroundings. The process unfolds via five questions: What familiarity? Where does it come from? threatens it? produce? How can operationalized studied empirically?