What is Rhythmanalysis?

In recent years, there has been growing interest in Henri Lefebvre’s posthumously published volume, Rhythmanalysis. For Lefebvre and more recent scholars, rhythmanalysis is a research strategy which offers a means of thinking space and time together in the study of everyday life, and this remains its strength and appeal.

What is Rhythmanalysis? addresses the task of how to do rhythmanalysis. It discusses the history and development of rhythmanalysis from Lefebvre to the present day in a range of fields including cultural history and studies of place, work and nature. For Lefebvre, it is necessary to be ‘grasped by’ a rhythm at a bodily level in order to grasp it. And yet we also need critical distance to fully understand it. Rhythmanalysis is therefore both corporeal and conceptual. This book considers how the body is directly deployed as a research tool in rhythmanalytical research as well as how audio-visual methods can get at rhythm beyond the capacity of the senses to perceive it. In particular, the book includes detailed discussion of research on different forms of mobility – from driving to dancing – and on the social life of markets – from finance to fish.

Dawn Lyon highlights the gains, limitations and lively potential of rhythmanalysis for spatially, temporally and sensually attuned practices of research. This engaging text will be of interest to students and researchers in sociology, criminology, socio-legal studies, geography, urban studies, architecture, anthropology, economics and cultural studies.