- Title
- The dangerous ambiguity of being on foot: Reflections on the act of walking and negotiating the tension between pedestrian and car in the process of writing a novel
- Creator
- Sala, Michael
- Relation
- Text Vol. 26, Issue 1, p. 1-15
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.52086/001C.33917
- Publisher
- Australian Association of Writing Programs
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2022
- Description
- This article situates the writing of a novel and its relationship to place within a practice-led vantage point that draws on concepts of writing about the city, ranging from the figure of the flâneur to the field of psychogeography. I explore how the physical act of moving through a city on foot and my close reading of two short stories – which both leverage the contrast between pedestrian and vehicle – helped me to approach and define the city in which my novel is set and, through this, offered specific opportunities and imaginative possibilities for the narrative rendering of place. I also unpack the potentiality of the car, particularly the way it shapes an unequal power dynamic in which the pedestrian may be observed, interpreted and threatened by someone who can remain protected within the enclosure of a vehicle.
- Subject
- fiction; domestic violence; pedestrian; psychogeography; flâneur; SDG 5; SDG 16; Sustainable Development Goals
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1490443
- Identifier
- uon:52906
- Identifier
- ISSN:1327-9556
- Language
- eng
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