Practicing Flânerie: Imagined and Applied Walking Strategies in Pretoria/Tshwane, South Africa

In late 2019, a poetry-writing “walkshop” in Pretoria/Tshwane, South Africa, was organized in collaboration with two local arts organizations. In this chapter, the walkshop is contextualized within debates on flânerie in South African cities, and attention given to the benefits and limitations of positioning it as part of this aesthetic tradition. This includes recognizing that, unlike Benjamin’s flâneur, the wandering poet is not easily identifiable in—or readily applicable to—South African’s urban environs. Close-reading the 12 poems written during the “Imagineering Tshwane” walkshop does suggest, however, that the concept of the poet-flâneur in Pretoria/Tshwane has merit. This figure can expose the mechanisms of control which limit how people use the city, and the ways in which people can and do resist them. The walkshop therefore demonstrates how flânerie amongst other artistic interventions can broaden understandings of the city in ways unavailable to the developmental discourse most often used to theorize Pretoria/Tshwane.