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The Impersonal Flâneur

Navigation Styles of Social Agents in Urban Traffic

University of Helsinki kalle.toiskallio{at}hut.fi

The framework of this article stems from the Simmelian urbanism: positive meanings of impersonality that resonate with the late Chicago School. The literature of the flâneur is used in this article to frame the impersonal attitude toward other persons in traffic. Data are drawn from six focus groups dealing with the daily journeys of dwellers of Helsinki, Finland. The data are assessed on the basis of a modal and enunciative analysis of semiotic sociology. Three ideal types of personal navigation and their maintenance of a certain amount of sociospatial distance to others show that the integrity and the flânerie's subtle resistance of acceleration still exist in contemporary urban traffic. Currently, the latter is done mainly by the flâneuse. The maintenance of distance is the carrying force of sociality in traffic. For urban studies, this traffic study gives field to search for functional and mental meaning of the general impersonality of urbanism.

Space and Culture, Vol. 5, No. 2, 169-184 (2002)
DOI: 10.1177/1206331202005002008


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