Rhythms of being together: public space in Urban Tajikistan through the lens of rhythmanalysis
International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy
ISSN: 0144-333X
Article publication date: 7 July 2015
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify, describe and critically assess public space in the Central Asian republic of Tajikistan, recurring to Henri Lefebvre’s concept of rhythmanalysis.
Design/Methodology/Approach
The empirical findings are based on ethnographic fieldwork on a courtyard in a housing estate in Khujand in northern Tajikistan.
Findings
The paper argues that an analytic dichotomy between the private and the public realm conceals more than it reveals, for the Central Asian case at least. The rhythmanalysis framework is presented as a possible solution to the deficiencies of dichotomic categories.
Originality/value
Even if we find a series of scholarly works dealing with (post-)Soviet and/or Central Asian public spaces, they very scarcely provide a critical assessment of the roots and the usefulness of this concept for the regional setting they work in. The paper strives to close this gap and to present Henri Lefebvre’s rhythmanalysis framework as a possible solution for overcoming dichotomic categories.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The field research in Khujand, on which the present paper is based, was generously supported by the German National Academic Foundation. An early draft of the paper was presented at a public workshop at IfL Leipzig, hosted by the ira.urban project (“Urban reconfigurations in post-Soviet space”).
Citation
Sgibnev, W. (2015), "Rhythms of being together: public space in Urban Tajikistan through the lens of rhythmanalysis", International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, Vol. 35 No. 7/8, pp. 533-549. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSSP-11-2014-0097
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2015, Emerald Group Publishing Limited