This book analyses a unique leisure world that has been built around a newly emerging phenomenon known as urban exploration; the art of exploring human-made environments which are generally abandoned or hidden from sight of the public eye. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s concept of heterotopia, Bingham provides a detailed and critical investigation of urban exploration as a form of leisure that is about the coming together of drifting performers who, in their celebration of ‘rebellion’ and ‘deviance’, are determined to find a sense of meaning and belonging.
The research considers the influence of consumer capitalism on urban explorers, and the wider social, economic and political context that shapes ideas of belonging and identity in the twenty-first century. By doing this, the book analyses urban exploration as an activity that has emerged in a time when human ideas about culture, individuality and community have transformed, and ‘solid’ modernity is gradually disintegrating around us.
This multi and interdisciplinary work will appeal to people with an interest in ‘abnormal’ or ‘deviant’ leisure, as well as academics from sociology, anthropology, social geography, leisure studies, cultural studies, sport and recreation and tourism.
Author(s): Kevin P. Bingham
Series: Leisure Studies in a Global Era
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: 296
City: Cham
Acknowledgements
Contents
List of Figures
Part I Setting the Scene
1 In Between the Everyday and the Imaginary
Why a Book on Urban Exploration as Heterotopia?
A Definition of Heterotopic Social Space
Conceptualising the Non-conceptual
Outline of the Book
References
2 Some Reflections on the Existing Literature
Introduction
Aestheticising Decay
Evading the Spectacle
Gender Trouble
Tightly Fractured ‘Communities’
Consumers in Disguise
The Performativity of Urban Exploration
Heterotopia Redux
Summary
References
3 Constructing a Critical Lens
Introduction
Metaphysical Orientations
The Research Design
On Being an Insider
Introducing WildBoyz
Raising Ethical Issues and Making Moral Choices
Summary
References
Part II Exploring the Interregnum
4 Seeking Spaces of Compensation in Modernity’s Dark Side
Introduction
The Utopian Dream
Rethinking the Nightmare of Disenchantment
Unpacking the Twenty-First-Century Interregnum
Finding Enchantment in Disenchantment: Taking the Spillway
Heterotopic Social Space
An Interim Summary
References
5 Finding a Way in the Garden of Forked Paths: The Ontological Hybrids Extraordinaire
Introduction
Obligation and Responsibility: Skholērs Unite
The ‘Art of Living’ Performatively: The Realm of the Khôraster
‘Of Other Spaces’: The Non-absolutes
Summary
References
Part III Unpacking Heterotopic Social Space
6 The Cognitive Spacing of WildBoyz: On Thinking Skholērly
Introduction
Skiing in the Interregnum
Cognitive Spacing in Heterotopia: The WildBoyz Way
Traitors and Ominous Strangers: Overcoming the Arcane ‘Other’
‘The Fr3e Roamer Cunts’
Heterotopic Space and Its Politics of ‘Otherness’
References
7 Aesthetic Social Spacing: Altogether Now with the Khôrasters
Introduction
Admission to the Attractions of the Underground
The Playful Ingeniousness of Urban Exploration
Chaos: On Exploiting the ‘Telecity’
The Ephemeral Ecstasy of Aesthetic Space
References
8 Being with and Being for: Moral Social Spacing in Action
Introduction
A Night on the Town
On Free Floating Responsibility
Re-examining the Moral Party
Another Interim Summary
References
Part IV Heterotopic Ways of Being
9 Practised Life Strategies of WildBoyz
Introduction
Schizophrenia: A Polymorphic Life Strategy
The Schizo Crisis
Seeking the Craic: A Nostalgic Life Strategy
Finding the Craic in France
‘Good Craic’: The Art of Reliving the Mundane and the Spectacular
The Differend and the Sublime: A Parasitical Life Strategy
A Twenty-First-Century Lesson in Sublimation
The Feeling of the Traumatic Sublime
Living in a ‘Viewer Society’: The Life Strategy for Media Whores
The Pub Brawl
Competing for Fame and Stardom in a Digital World
The Synoptic Life: The Performativity of Deviance
Summary
References
Part V Restorative Dreams and Potential Futures
10 No End in Sight
Some New Research Directions
Re-Imagining Urban Exploration
The Ongoing Myth
References
Index
