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.
