The Tourist Gait and Sidewalk Rage

The mobility and performativity turns in social sciences offer valuable perspectives to assess affective and sensuous aspects in the consumption of spaces, which draw attention to the embodied (Jensen et al. 2017), haptic (Waade & Jørgensen, 2010) or auditory (Bolderman, 2020) aspects of ‘placemaking’. Still little focus is directed at collective walking performances – and how affect is transferred between tourists and others walking in different styles and pace. In order to better understand the contestation of public pedestrian places, we should therefore turn our attention to co-created atmospheres and to identify what may lead to anomalous ruptures in “good place vibes”. With the rise of overtourism and spatial saturation of city destinations, there is a need to problematize the effect of crowds, and the clash of diverse urban walking mobilities. Varying levels of cognitive familiarity, corporeal “fluency” as well as fluidity in a local spatial context may produce a range of affective intensities (ranging from thrill and excitement to anxiety, stress, apathy, boredom and even anger). The superposition of these individual resonances produce collective atmospheres where a sense of community and solidarity emerges between guests and hosts, locals and visitors. However, urban good vibes are occasionally transformed into “sidewalk rage”. This paper sets out to explore the affective atmospheres of the urban buzz in Copenhagen’s touristic centre, by analysing the disruptions (and enhancements) in the affective fabric of the cityscape created by short term cruise visitors. The analysis will draw on sensous methods and combine distinct conceptual frameworks (Böhme’s atmosphere 1999; Jansson’s texturation, 2007), to explore how the co-located micro-performances and affective intensities of pedestrians take place and shape public space, and as such, reveal sensuous spatial imaginaries “in the making”.