FROM FLANERIE

Abstract

Baudelaire (1863) and Benjamin (1983) used the term flaneur to denote a modern man who could evocatively describe social life in urban areas. A flaneur was poetically to describe the ephemeral nature of modern urban life, but without acting as a consumer. Here I approach Las Vegas from the perspective of a flaneur, and discuss the possibilities in that city for flanerie today. I introduce the concept pseudo-flanerie, and apply it to postmodern tourism. In Las Vegas, pseudo-flaneurs wander from one impersonation of a city/culture/era to another, stroll from one game to another, and move from one presentation of self to another. However, surveillance, social control, and the organizing principles of capitalism structure each. I also discuss pseudo-flanerie in Las Vegas in terms of temporality, morality, and consumption practices. I find that the flaneur’s traditionally anti-consumer stance has been endangered in tourist cities like Las Vegas, where mock cities have commodified city-like experiences to tourists who ultimately pay to engage in practices traditionally associated with flaneurs. A postmodern tourist environment like Las Vegas, therefore, creates the conditions for the pseudo-flaneur to emerge.

Citation

Borchard, K. (2003), "FROM FLANERIE", Studies in Symbolic Interaction (Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 26), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 191-213. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0163-2396(02)26013-5