The persistence of bohemia

This paper is a reflection on bohemia, both as a historical and a contemporary phenomenon. It explores bohemia as an expression of and a response to the contradictions of both 19th-century bourgeois society and present-day neo-liberal society. It begins with an examination of the origins of bohemia in 19th-century Paris and follows its expansion and popularisation through the 20th century. The paper then focuses on Berlin as a paradigmatic example of present-day bohemia in its globalised and industrialised form; Berlin is significant in this context for two reasons: first, because it has become a global destination for followers of a bohemian lifestyle as described below, and second, because the concept of bohemia has been incorporated into property speculation and economic development policy discourses. Drawing on Barthes' definition of myth as an imaginary solution to unresolvable contradictions, Elizabeth Wilson characterises bohemia as a 'cultural myth about art in modernity, a myth which seeks to reconcile art to industrial capitalism, to create for it a role in consumer society' ( Bohemians: The Glamorous Outcasts , 3. London: I. B. Tauris, 2000). The author is in agreement with Wilson, but would add that for contemporary bohemia, there is a further contradiction to be resolved: between the desire for a personally meaningful, exciting and glamorous lifestyle and the lucrative nature of this lifestyle for post-industrial capitalism. The author originally came from an arts practice background, then entered academic research as a way of trying to understand the incorporation of culture into capitalism. This text forms part of this investigation.