ABSTRACT
This essay seeks to bring together three figures, the flâneur, the malandro and the compadrito, from three great cities of the 19th century, Paris, Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires, respectively, according to the terms developed by Walter Benjamin in a classic essay. By hypothesis, the three consist not only of figures dimmed by the forces of progress, but also perform an ambivalent resistance to these forces, particular to each one. We could still think of them as figures related to each other and forming an intriguing design in the face of the growth of cities and the advance of nineteenth-century capitalism.
KEYWORDS:
Walter Benjamin; flâneur; malandro; compadrito; materialism