Beyond rhythmanalysis: towards a territoriology of rhythms and melodies in everyday spatial activities

Abstract

The recent, rich scholarship on rhythms, following in the wake of Lefebvre's book Éléments de rythmanalyse (1992), proves that rhythmanalysis is an important sensitising notion and research technique. Despite its increasing recognition, however, rhythmanalysis has not yet become a proper science as its proponents had hoped. In this article, we argue that rhythmanalysis could benefit from being further developed and integrated into a wider science of territories. What research must attain is, we suggest, not simply a recording, description or analysis of rhythms; instead, the goal is to capture the life of rhythms as they enter territorial formations. A neo-vitalistic conception, in other words, could enrich the standard social-scientific understanding of the relation between rhythms and territories. More specifically, we submit that the notion of rhythm could be explored not only in terms of the recurrent patterns of association it defines, but also with essential reference to the intensive situations and moments it generates and, in the end, territorialises.

The territoriality of atmosphere: Rethinking affective urbanism through the collateral atmospheres of Lisbon’s tourism

“…However, this is not a single process of deterritorialisation, but rather a cyclical series of reterritorialisations and deterritorialisations of atmospheres promoted by a multiplicity of agents attempting to construct, stage, or perform atmospheres. It is over time that such ephemeral territorialisations of atmospheres crystallise into established territorial productions within the city (Brighenti & Kärrholm, 2018b; Kärrholm, 2017). While our study has shown their effect on social life, it also must be taken into account that these collateral atmospheres interact and contribute to wider socio‐economic problems of financialisation, gentrification, and touristification of Lisbon (Barata‐Salgueiro, 2017; Guimarães, 2018; Mendes, 2017; Sequera & Nofre, 2019).…”

“…It must be noted that, like atmospheres, territories have been conceived as socio-spatial associations that do not include the activities of humans alone, but also that of animals, plants, technologies, objects, and space itself (Brighenti, 2010;Brighenti & Kärrholm, 2018a). Such socio-spatial associations carve out spaces of appropriation that include and exclude other elements and in which certain practices and atmospheres are performed (Brighenti & Kärrholm, 2018b;Kärrholm, 2017). In the case of Lisbon, which we will present in the next sections, this territorial dimension is most evident in the tension between the hegemonic state-led or corporate-led practices of atmospheric production (Adey, 2008(Adey, , 2014Fregonese, 2017;Yu, 2019) and individual everyday practices of atmosphere-making (Bille, 2013(Bille, , 2015Pink and Leder Mackley, 2016), especially in the sense that the construction and designing of atmospheres deterritorialises less obvious or public forms of staging or performing intimate, homely, or private atmospheres.…”

“There are no days off, just days without shows”: precarious mobilities in the touring music industry

“…Over the course of the research, a number of respondents describe similar experiences of sleeping in public or semi-public parking lots and using gym memberships for basic hygiene. Edensor (2010b) writes that "patterns of mobile flow thus contribute to the spatio-temporal character of place" (5), suggesting that the presence of touring musicians and productions transform these non-places into meaningful places of habitation (Cresswell 2006, 31;Auge 1995). Edensor (2010b), continues that the "speed, pace and periodicity of a habitual journey produces a stretched out, linear apprehension of place shaped by the form of a railway or road, and the qualities of the vehicle" (6).…”

“…Cars, busses, highways, airports, loading docks, parking lots, etc. are typically understood as transitory and generic (Auge 1995). Yet, an examination of touring space suggests otherwise.…”

Rhythmanalysis of Urban Events: Empirical Elements from the Montreux Jazz Festival

“…As suggested by this non-exhaustive list, rhythmanalysis is not yet a well-defined field of research and science of rhythms is yet to be founded (Brighenti & Kärrholm, 2018). As Brighenti and Kärrholm (2016) claim, such science of rhythms could be integrated into a general science of the processes of territorialisation and socialisation (Brighenti & Kärrholm, 2016;Kärrholm, 2007) by putting into perspective the melodies and refrains revealed by the deployment of daily activities that take place with varying degrees of intensity (Brighenti & Kärrholm, 2018).…”