By: Kaarina Sorensen-Jarrett, Co-Editor
Notions of solidarity can be cause for disillusionment as it feels that manner of care should be innate; when it is not, it feels the purest form of invalidation. When that lack of cohesion surrounds the individual as it does when living in a city, it feels inescapable and shame becomes a part of life.
Dick Hebdige crafted the idea of subculture around the phenomenon of a certain kind of dissemination that began in the late 70s. While pertinent to the era, it has fallen under criticism in the decades since. Most notably, the lack of inclusivity in the formation of identity that is allowed by his definition of subculture. To be able to participate fully in what could be considered antisocial behaviors is a privilege, a Cishet White Male one at that. To be able to go out into the world, dressed as you please, engaging in alternative activities, at non-mainstream locales is a privilege.
Once normalized, punk subculture was extended to people with lesser privilege, but these outliers of the outcast’s outgroup were merely being allowed access into a world which had already been created and already had its own rules. Many people falsely believe that Riot Grrrl was a successful integration into the genre by women, but it is heavily doused in racism and it is that which shows it is exactly the same as the origins created by Sid Vicious and the like. That is to say, unless all are included, then it is not inclusive. It is not feminist to be racist, intersectionality is a necessity to break down barriers of genre, of subculture, of city planning. To pick and choose lacks any sort of dissemination as it simply shows that your benefit from the power structures in place is what allows for your ‘rebellion,’ it is a visage of anarchy, not actual action.
Virginia Woolf broadcasted the importance of ‘A Room of One’s Own’ in 1929, but it takes on a new meaning when cross-analysed with Hebdige’s observations. Women are only allowed to craft worlds in the sanctuary of domestic life, their bounds are constricted to that of the home, and –if they are so lucky– are specialized in their rooms. Images of girlhood take place in pillow fights and blanket forts, of secret lands brought to life with exchanges between friends as lamp lights cast shadows through the sheer fabrics above. A certain craftiness in any art with a certain readymade quality to it. This is where the world exists for women, where it is acceptable to exist.
Charles Beaudelaire coined the term Flaneur in the 1800s to label a certain kind of man who was known to put on an outfit just to walk around the city. To observe and, in turn, be observed by fellow pedestrians. There was a sense of identity being crafted in the mutual voyeurism taking place, the spectacle of both embodying and perpetuating culture. It is only in recent years that any notion of the Flaneuse (a female counterpart which subverts the original role) has appeared, explored at length only by Laurie Elkin. It is a label which I have become most attached to.
I never felt safe at home. It was never a place where I was allowed to be myself, where I thought I was in danger if I was anything other than a monotonous wall. For years, there was nowhere to explore my sense of self without abandon. Because of the various traumas imposed on my life as a consequence of my womanhood, the world at large was too terrifying to venture out into for years, everything was tinged with the fear of bumping into something that might trigger me. The sole place that was set aside for me to discover myself was not one in which I felt comfortable. It was not until high school that the world was introduced to me by exploring abandoned buildings or biking to Lake Michigan. It was not until college that long treks on Northeastern’s treadmills would ground me. It was not until New York that the world became wherever my feet would take me. It was not until London that I learned to let people in by simply taking a walk with them.
Exploring the world made for somebody who clearly is not me has allowed me to use my flaneuse identity to question everything about the way we interact with the space around us, beyond the evident uses of redlining or anti-houseless infrastructure or gerrymandering or any other arbitrary political marking of land which I condemn to the extreme. The existence of any of these is based on the idea that land is something which can be owned rather than a place which we appreciate for what it gives us, such ownership is an entirely delusional invention for land is never innately political, false meanings are projected to keep us in our place and by simply redefining our relationship to the land we are then able to disable those falsehoods.
The man-made world takes the shape of those who get to build it and the rest of us must assimilate our views and understanding to fit the narratives given to us. Living in New York City and momentarily residing in London, it is clear who has built the metropolis. Christopher Alexander does well to note how cities are naturally molded by its inhabitants in his book, ‘The Nature of Order’. Just as “a house is the residue of the interactions between the members of a family, their emotions and their belongings,” a city is simply a much larger house. The framework was built for a generic family, not knowing the intricacies of the particular cluster who does indeed inhabit it and the city is a skeleton for the hoards which inhabit it. Moving into a new house is initially quite strange, it does not smell like a home until you have lived in it.
Solidarity, for me, deals with a connection to the earth which disrupts the disconnect that people in power formulate – taking different specific forms in different industries however interconnected, in this case, I personally would cite Robert Wagner and his horrendous city planning during NYC’s mass expansion in the fifties and sixties – have crafted in order to leave us no option except to assimilate to the world built for us (but not for us) without our intersectional needs in mind. It means that I take the time to develop relationships with the greenery around me, as well as the people and personally do what I can to avoid chain stores or anything that I feel furthers the connection between myself and the earth beneath my feet, the ground which connects us all.
