Street Rhythms in the ‘Twilight Zone’ – Crepuscular Urban Mobility Rhythms and Their Effects on the Atmospheres of Street Space

Abstract

The rhythmic patterns of urban mobilities, and their fluctuations and modifications across the day, give the streets their perceived and experienced atmosphere and character. This paper examines such street atmospheres and focusses on the role of embodied mobility rhythms in the (re)making of the atmospheres throughout the day. Utilising a rhythmanalytical framework and research data comprising videoed site observations and on-site fieldnotes, the study analyses ‘crepuscular’ (behaviour taking place during the twilight hours of the day, at dawn and dusk) mobility rhythms that reveal internal tensions and modalities of urban sites across a 24-hour period. The analysis highlights the connections between fluctuating pressures of motor traffic and mobile embodied appropriations of the space in the making of the streetscape and its changing atmospheres between the ‘day-time city’ and the ‘night-time city’. The chapter demonstrates that an analytical focus on such ‘in-between’ temporalities of the twilight can help to map the complex and multifaceted urban polyrhythmia, which, in turn, might provide new insight for rhythm-based perspectives towards urban atmospheres and street spaces as sites of urban social life.

Citation

Tartia, J. (2021), "Street Rhythms in the ‘Twilight Zone’ – Crepuscular Urban Mobility Rhythms and Their Effects on the Atmospheres of Street Space", Lyon, D. (Ed.) Rhythmanalysis (Research in Urban Sociology, Vol. 17), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 105-122. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1047-004220210000017001