I wander thro’ each charter’d street – Inquiries into Psychogeography by Group 2
An Inquiry into Feminine Flânerie
By Kristen Elizabeth Donoghue-Stanford
Psychogeography: the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, whether consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals.
flâneur – a man who saunters around observing society.
“The crowd is his element, as the air is that of birds and water of fishes. His passion and his profession are to become one flesh with the crowd. For the perfect flâneur, for the passionate spectator, it is an immense joy to set up house in the heart of the multitude, amid the ebb and flow of movement, in the midst of the fugitive and the infinite. To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world—impartial natures which the tongue can but clumsily define. The spectator is a prince who everywhere rejoices in his incognito. The lover of life makes the whole world his family, just like the lover of the fair sex who builds up his family from all the beautiful women that he has ever found, or that are or are not—to be found; or the lover of pictures who lives in a magical society of dreams painted on canvas. Thus the lover of universal life enters into the crowd as though it were an immense reservoir of electrical energy. Or we might liken him to a mirror as vast as the crowd itself; or to a kaleidoscope gifted with consciousness, responding to each one of its movements and reproducing the multiplicity of life and the flickering grace of all the elements of life.”
Charles Baudelaire – The Painter of Modern Life 1863
This definition of psychogeography is limited.
Alasdair Pettinger in his chapter “PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY” from the book Keywords for Travel Writing Studies states that:
“To the extent that psychogeography resembled a field of study that aspired to a degree of cartographical objectivity, its proponents failed to
acknowledge the extent to which different social relations will produce radically diverse interpretations of one’s surroundings, a tendency that was reinforced by their emphasis on the built environment, fondness for aerial views and recommendation that research should be conducted by small numbers of like- minded people. For this reason, critics have referred to its ‘bohemian solipsism’ and ‘cadre mentality’ and its failure ‘to reveal its own situated- ness in terms of gender and class’.”
Pyschogeography and flânerie are similarly invested into the observation of people, with a particular focus on how their environment impacts behaviour and emotion. These observations form a guideline to understanding the people within a specific area. As Pettinger stated, these observations were often conducted by “like-minded” individuals – in particular middle to upper class men.
How does that impact our understanding of society and the pyschogeographical portrait created?
A flâneur was almost always a man. While there were women at the time performing these studies in observation, the flâneurs discredited them, believing women to be incapable of the distanced and unemotional observance of humanity. This denied psychogeography and flânerie multiple different view points into the observance of people. It also meant that people of different genders, race, and socio-economic class were often de-humanized and seen as a continuous part of the urban environment to which they were surrounded, rather than as individuals capable of rational thought and understanding.
Pettinger continues on to explain that:
“understood as an artistic or political intervention that was intended to
transform the way people experience the city, psychogeography would seem to be at least open to the suggestion that the same places might be imaginatively inhabited in different ways, and thus carries more possibilities”
In exploring flânerie and in attempting to create a psychogeographical portrait of the areas in which I live and explore, I have to acknowledge the influence of my own experiences and privileges that will inform the portrait.
Bricket Wood
Bricket Wood Railway Station resides on Station Road in the Village of Bricket Wood. The train is part of the Abbey Line, connecting St. Alban’s to Watford Junction where in which a train can be caught directly to London Euston.
It is an ideal and quaint village that allows the pleasures of country life without being an impossible feat from London. The railway began operation in 1858 and continues today.
In the past it connected the people of London to a fairground run and operated in what is now the village by R.B. Christmas. This fair closed in 1929.
The village is also home to two naturist communities (one being the longest running in the UKs history) and in the 1940s attracted Wiccans to join the Bricket Wood Coven (or Hertfordshire Coven) founded by Gerald Gardner.
The village itself is under the District Council of St. Alban’s in the county of Hertfordshire.
Coming from a rural community in Ontario, Canada there is a distinct difference in how I craft the psychogeographical portrait of the area compared to someone who has lived in Bricket Wood their whole life, or from someone coming up from London. Our experiences shape the way in which we read and interact with people. With this in mind, can psychogeography ever be entirely accurate?
The idea of a female flâneur was for a time impossible to consider. Despite what men said, they did exist and one often wrote fiction scathing commentary on the gentry throughout England.
Jane Austen did not simply write romance. Her works were particularly focused on the landed gentry of England and the relations between social class and gender politics. Throughout her works, psychogeography became an important but at times invisible component in this commentary. The location of where the characters live and reside directly impact their behaviour and emotional state.
Her novel Pride and Prejudice has her main character Lizzie Bennet and her family residing in Hertfordshire and provides several different psychogeographical portraits in each member of the family. Showcasing that there is never one correct profile, but different ones with common links.
Jane Austen was above all things an observer of the human condition, with a purposeful focus on women’s emotions and desires in relation to class, economics, and romance.
Feminine flânerie holds the chance for a unique perspective. While deemed to be the unemotional observation of people, the ability to empathize would allow for a clearer understanding of the psychological and emotional responses of the people of a particular geographical setting.
Emotional labour is often a trait instilled in women from a young age, being trained to empathize and anticipate the needs of others in order to placate and appease. It is a burden we do not ask for. However, in terms of flânerie it can aid in the processing of the actions of individuals in order to determine the meaning behind their behaviours and emotion with more ease than if one were to observe without emotional vulnerability. Empathy becomes a strength.
Above and below are images of the home in which I live with my family in Bricket Wood. My maternal grandmother’s niece, her husband, daughter, and dog, Minnie. I can’t help but note a drastic change as I commute into London everyday; from the architecture to the people. In under an hour I am able to leave and enter two very different worlds.
That leaves me, the potential to act with feminine flânerie, and Bricket Wood. And perhaps beyond that as I make my daily travel from the quaint Hertfordshire village to Westminster everyday for school.
Once more my own personal history will impact me. My grandmother grew up in London, born at 5 Stalbridge Street in Lisson Grove. Her mother and mother-in-law (best friends in later life) are buried in St. Mary’s one row away from each other despite their deaths being nearly two decades apart. My family history goes back longer here then ever in my home in Canada. I have more living relatives here then back home. What does that mean for me, as an International Student with historical ties? How do I perceive the psychogeography of these places? How will I be perceived? And how can feminine flânerie impact this exploration in psychogeopgraphy?
Recommendations on Psychogeography/ Flânerie + Related Topics
F = Fiction NF= Non-Fiction P= Poetry
Songs of Innocence/ Songs of Experience by William Blake P
The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin F
Rebecca and The Birds by Daphne du Maurier F
One Place After Another: Site-Specificity and Locational Identity by Miwon Kwon NF
High Rise by J. G. Ballard F
Richard Serra Interviews (Tilted Arc) by Richard Serra NF
The Painter of Modern Life by Charles Baudelaire NF
At Home with Flânerie; Guillermo del Toro, Cinematic Flânerie and the AGO Exhibition by Megan O’Brien NF
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen F
John Carpenter’s The Thing/ In The Mouth of Madness by John Carpenter F
Who Goes There? By John W. Campbell Jr. F
Womanhouse Exhibition 1972 LA. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx0ZPfLrsfk NF
Metropolis (1928) Film by Fritz Lang F
Murderers Are Among Us (1946) by Wolfgang Staudte F
Phoenix (2014) by Christian Petzold F
Bibliography
“A Brief History of Our Village.” Bricket Wood Residents’ Association. Accessed November 17, 2020. https://www.bricketwood.org/brief-history-of-our-village.
“A Brief History of Our Village – Bricket Wood Residents’ Association.” Google Sites. Accessed November 17, 2020. https://sites.google.com/site/bricketwoodra/brief-history-of-our-village.
“Development of Bricket Wood – Bricket Wood Residents’ Association.” Google Sites. Accessed November 17, 2020. https://sites.google.com/site/bricketwoodra/brief-history-of-our-village/development-of-bricket-wood.
Elliott, Coran. “Area Guide: The Pretty Hertfordshire Village of Bricket Wood.” Herts Advertiser. Accessed November 17, 2020. https://www.hertsad.co.uk/property/area-guide-the-pretty-hertfordshire-village-of-bricket-wood-1-5295587.
Hertfordshire Genealogy: Places: Bricket Wood. Accessed November 17, 2020. http://www.hertfordshire-genealogy.co.uk/data/places/places-b/bricket-wood/bricket-wood.htm.
“History.” Bricket Wood Station Trust. July 04, 2018. Accessed November 17, 2020. https://bricketwoodstationtrust.org.uk/history/.
Love, Rachel. “4 Wonderfully Bizarre Things about Bricket Wood.” Herts Advertiser. Accessed November 17, 2020. https://www.hertsad.co.uk/property/4-wonderfully-bizarre-things-about-bricket-wood-1-5111743.
Pettinger, Alasdair. “PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY.” In Keywords for Travel Writing Studies: A Critical Glossary, edited by Forsdick Charles, Kinsley Zoë, and Walchester Kathryn, 208-10. New York, NY: Anthem Press, 2019. Accessed November 17, 2020. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.library.yorku.ca/stable/j.ctvg5bsp2.75.
Tate. “Psychogeography – Art Term.” Tate. Accessed November 17, 2020. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/p/psychogeography.
Tate. “Flâneur – Art Term.” Tate. Accessed November 17, 2020. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/f/flaneur.
Schipper, Imanuel. “From Flâneur to Co-producer: The Performative Spectator.” In Performing the Digital: Performance Studies and Performances in Digital Cultures, edited by Schipper Imanuel, Leeker Martina, and Beyes Timon, 191-210. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2017. Accessed November 17, 2020. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.library.yorku.ca/stable/j.ctv1xxsxb.12.