Walking in the city as (model for) “dissensus”

Abstract

This paper explores the variegated spatial meanings of “the city” by way of Michel de Certeau’s reflections on “walking in the city” as part of “the practice of everyday life”, which he conceives of as allowing people multiple ways of escaping the straitjacket of the “disciplinary society”. The latter conception, deriving from Foucault’s investigation of disciplinary practices, ostensibly leaves one scant opportunity to escape from the clutches of disciplinary mechanisms such as hierarchical observation, normalizing judgement and the examination, which appear to find their counterpart in the apparently carceral spatial design of the city. In contrast to the belief, that one has become inescapably enmeshed in panoptical practices, which tend to reduce humans to “docile bodies”, however, De Certeau traces the multiple tactics employed by pedestrians to subvert their assimilation into the pre-planned geometries of city design. He also alludes to Freud’s claims about repetition of spatially originary experiences, which is here employed to examine the relation between spatial familiarity and foreignness in different cities. These considerations are placed in constellation with Deleuze and Guattari’s distinction between striated and smooth spaces, as well as with Hardt and Negri’s distinction between planes of immanence and of control, and Lytotard’s between the modern and the postmodern, thus creating the possibility of conceiving of walking in the city as an act of dissent regarding the society of discipline. This could suggest more robust practices of subverting the ostensibly all-encompassing, pseudo-political realm of what Ranciére calls “the police”, by introducing moments of peripatetic “dissensus” into the striated fabric of the city.

Hierdie artikel ondersoek die uiteenlopende ruimtelike betekenisse van “die stad” aan die hand van Michel de Certeau se refleksie oor “stadwandeling” as deel van die “praktyk van die alledaagse lewe”, wat volgens hom veelvuldige geleenthede aan mense bied om aan die dwangbuis van die “dissiplinêre samelewing” te ontsnap. Laasgenoemde verwys na Foucault se ondersoek na dissiplinêre praktyke, en laat oënskynlik weinig geleentheid om dissiplinêre meganismes soos hiërargiese observasie, normaliserende oordeel en die eksamen te ontwyk, wat blykbaar die ekwivalent is van die geometries-inperkende ruimtelike ontwerp van die stad. In teenstelling met die opvatting, dat subjekte onontvlugbaar verstrengel is in panoptiese praktyke wat mense tot “slaafse liggame” reduseer, ontbloot De Certeau die taktiese maneuvers wat deur stadwandelaars benut word om hul onderworpenheid aan die voorafbeplande geometrie van stadsbeplanning te ondermyn. Hy verwys ook na Freud se insigte ten opsigte van die herhaling van ruimtelik-generatiewe ervaringe, wat hier aangewend word om die verhouding tussen ruimtelike bekendheid en vreemdheid in verskillende stede te ondersoek. Hierdie oorweginge word in ‘n konstellasie geplaas met Deleuze en Guattari se onderskeid tussen “gladde” en “gestreepte” ruimte, sowel as met Hardt en Negri s’n tussen vlakke van immanensie en van beheer, asook dié van Lyotard tussen die moderne en die postmoderne. Langs hierdie weg kan ‘n mens aan stadwandeling as ‘n anderse of afwykende handeling teenoor die samelewing van dissipline dink, en moontlik in die rigting van meer robuuste praktyke beweeg, om die skynbaar allesomvattende pseudo-politieke sfeer van wat Ranciére “die polisie” noem met elemente van nomadiese “dissensus” in die “gestreepte” ruimte van die stad te ontwrig.