Parisian Drifters: Flânerie and Dérive

Abstract

This chapter investigates and frames the urban walking of several Parisian drifters, including Charles Baudelaire, Guy Debord, and Michele Bernstein, as errant bodies. By reviewing the methods of their walking activities (flânerie and derive), as well as their political motivations, each one is demonstrated to be an errant body that utilizes movement through the city to actively resist and critique popular culture. A further claim is made that Bernstein’s proposal of derive is perhaps the most radical because of its thorough infusion into the everyday as an ontology of getting out-of-place.