Ethnography in absentia : Applying Lefebvre’s rhythmanalysis in impossible-to-research spaces

Introduction

There are two objectives to this paper. The first is to illuminate the theoretical basis for the transdisciplinary concept of rhythmanalysis (‘theory of rhythms’) as developed by Henri Lefebvre (1992). The second is to show how this concept can be transformed into a toolkit – used as a method – to research people groups where co-presence is impossible or difficult to sustain (hence in absentia), making it impossible to conduct traditional ethnographic fieldwork. Though mainly theoretical, and therefore to some extent conjectural, this paper is informed by my research on older migrants to Britain in fieldwork (conducted between 1996 and 1998) and other documented studies.

Before I am able to discuss this ‘theory of rhythms’ I have first to explore some fundamental difficulties that many social scientists have in dealing with time as encountered by their research participants and in their own subsequent analysis. I will then show Lefebvre’s genius in the way he circumvented this problem by moving the discussion, which is usually mired in dichotomous relationships, to triadic relationships. By spelling out the relationship between physical moves over both time and space – as my older Chinese migrant respondents had done – I will show how rhythmanalysis can be used first as a theoretical framework to analyse, in this instance, migration and ageing. The versatility of rhythmanalysis as a transdisciplinary concept is shown by noting how rhythmanalysis has been used to theorize a range of other research. Finally, I will demonstrate how by distilling its basic principles we can re-fashion rhythmanalysis into a research ‘toolkit’, a method, to study people groups (such as refugees, migrant workers, professionals) where participant observation is not an option, either because the (migratory, career) journeys have already taken place or when unfettered access to research participants (usually at their work place) is not possible. I propose a hypothetical example (foreign domestic workers) to show how such a toolkit might work with the help of existing ethnographic literature, much like what previous armchair anthropologists have done. If this toolkit can be used to conduct ethnography in absentia amongst foreign domestic workers, then logically it could be extended to study other groups where access to participants within certain times and spaces is difficult.

This paper does not, in any way, claim that the analysis of rhythms is in itself a new anthropological research method. I am merely trying to elucidate the main principles behind Lefebvre’s conception of rhythmanalysis to highlight how it could guide future research. In Doing Fieldwork, Rubinstein asserted that our ‘understanding of the dynamics of fieldwork and theory construction remains so meager’ (2002: 16) and that, in the struggle to establish anthropology as a science, it can be shown that anthropology is lacking in ‘epistemological sophistication’ (2002: 19). From such a theoretical perspective, therefore, I aim to add some small degree of epistemological sophistication to anthropological research. More significantly and from a pragmatic perspective we see how if, indeed, ‘[all] the world seems to be on the move’ (Sheller and Urry, 2006: 207), then the traditional single-sited ethnographic fieldwork that apprentice anthropologists used to conduct is very much a thing of the past (see also Gupta and Ferguson, 1992). Elsewhere other scholars have highlighted the difficulties in doing participant observation in business corporations (Van der Waal, 2009; Moeran, 2009) and particularly of ‘studying up’ (Nader, 1969), when researchers are considered to be of a lower social status than those they are studying, or where the need for secrecy, confidentiality and ‘health and safety’ makes participant observation impossible (Lee, 2014a). While this paper takes inspiration from thinking about migration study, it is hoped that other researchers might test this toolkit – in any way modified – on other people groups, including occupational groups, in settings where participant observation is out of the question.

Time and rhythm

To appreciate the usefulness of rhythmanalysis I must first discuss the issue of time, which has been described as the ‘handmaiden to other anthropological frames and issues (political structures, descent, ritual, work, narrative, history, cosmology, etc., as well as, at another level, general theories of anthropological discourse) with which it is inextricably bound up’ (Munn, 1992: 93). In discussing the relationship between time and social structure, Fortes (1970: 1, 2) talks of time as being variously ‘mere duration’, ‘continuity’ or ‘genetic’. Fabian (2002 [1983]: 22) classifies time as being ‘physical’, ‘mundane’ and ‘typological’. E.T. Hall (1983: 13, 14) tells us about sacred and profane time, physical and metaphysical time and how our ‘biological clock’ could get ‘out of phase’ – Edensor (2013: 167) uses the phrase ‘out of synch’ – when we travel by jet. Adam (1988: 219) questions the usefulness of adopting the duality of social-natural time, seeing that whenever social scientists focus on time ‘they find themselves faced with a multitude of times that display a total disregard for established disciplinary boundaries and categories’, and so it is not a question of either/or, as since ‘it has been shown that clock-time can never be the only social time’, social scientists need to use clock-time ‘in conjunction with other forms of social time’. In a later work, Adam (1995) asserts that ‘[t]here is no single time, only a multitude of times which interpenetrate and permeate our daily lives’. Some of these times were listed by Novotny (1994) as public time and private time, work time and free time, women’s time and men’s time, individual time and global time, and cyclical time and linear time, and there is also clock and calendar time (Adam, 1995; Postill, 2002).

In her review essay on time, Munn takes us on a survey from, amongst many others, Durkheim’s ‘personal time’ and Bergson’s durée to Evans-Pritchard’s ‘oecological time’ and ‘structural time’ (1992: 95–7). Munn concludes with the ‘Augustinian lament’ of how difficult it is ‘to find a meta-language to conceptualize something so ordinary and apparently transparent in everyday life’ (1992: 116). In that same year, Gell (1992: 315) reassures us that even though there are other clocks, ‘other schedules to keep abreast of, other frustrating delays, happy anticipations, unexpected turns of events and long stretches of grinding monotony’, there is ‘no fairyland where people experience time in a way that is markedly unlike the way in which we do ourselves’.

More recently, Irvine (2014: 157) examines time in relation to the need for anthropology to ‘engage with processes of global climate change’ and therefore an understanding of the ‘Anthropocene’, a geological epoch in which humans drive ‘geologic, atmospheric and geomorphological changes’. He goes on to echo Eickelman (1977: 40) to note how apparent presentism is achieved by creating an image, for example, of the Kaguru (Beidelman, 1963) and Kabyle (Bourdieu, 1964) as ‘closed societies, unconnected to broader historical processes’, thus allowing these societies to ‘dwell in an ahistorical cultural present’ (Irvine, 2014: 160). In this sense anthropologists are accused of ignoring that even purportedly ‘closed’ societies have ‘travelled’ over time (i.e. history).

It was of course E.P. Thompson who gave us the historical account of the changing interrelationships between time, working practices and the rise of industrial capitalism in his seminal article of 1967. Using various published sources, and even quoting Lefebvre (1958), we learned of a period in history when workers were not terribly keen on good time-keeping, but with advanced technology (particularly in horology) and the increasing capitalist influence where an eye on the bottom-line was imperative, time became ‘a currency: not passed but spent’ (Thompson, 1967: 61). In 1996 Glennie and Thrift sought to ‘rework’ or ‘reformulate’ Thompson’s paper but – despite a gallant attempt with their introduction of terms such as ‘time-sense’ (p. 282), ‘time-awareness’ and ‘time-orientation’ (p. 283) – they only ended up with yet another list of descriptors for time (p. 284), not unlike those already noted in the preceding paragraphs here.

Rhythms: When two become three

It is a formidable task to reconcile these disparate strands of thought on time, how they interrelate and how time affects communities and social structures. It is my view that rhythmanalysis is, or is part of, the ‘meta-language’ that Munn (1992: 116) found so elusive when grappling with time. At the very least, rhythmanalysis can be viewed as one of the ‘many different analytical frameworks’ (Gell, 1992: 315) to help us evaluate time in different cultural and ethnographic contexts. Perhaps conscious of the a priori necessary conditions of space and time as propounded by Kant, Fortes (1970: 2) notes that whatever had been said of time ‘applies equally to the spatial factor which is universally present in social structures’. Similarly, Gell (1992: 352) asserts that any scholarship of time ought to be aware of the impact of ‘social actions in their space-time frame’ and the reconstruction of ‘internalized time-maps’ of the ethnographic subjects.

With the added perspective of rhythmanalysis it appears that several of these scholars were close to unravelling the relationship between time and rhythm. Evans-Pritchard (1939: 192) used ‘rhythm’ and ‘time’ interchangeably, referring to ‘three planes of rhythm: physical rhythm, oecological rhythm based on physical changes, and social rhythm based on oecological changes’. Even Thompson (1967: 73) wondered if the there was something ‘“natural” about the human work pattern’ of ‘honouring Saint Monday’ by not working – an ‘irregular working rhythm’ between the 18th and 20th centuries that ‘was commonly associated with heavy week-end drinking’ (1967: 76). Adam (1995: 45) hints at the significance of rhythmicity, noting that ‘research on the rhythmicity of the mindful body works the seam of interaction between nature and culture, body and mind, life and death’. E.T. Hall (1983: 15) used the phrase ‘an endless web of rhythms’ to refer to how people relate one with another, but it was Lefebvre who managed to transcend the stranglehold of dualistic thinking and made that epistemological leap, by moving the discussion based on dyadic oppositions to one grounded in triadic dialectics.

Lefebvre’s dialectic is made up of three terms which ‘can be understood as a thesis [where] each one refers to the other two and would remain an abstraction without the others’, thus linking ‘three moments that are left distinct from each other, without reconciling them in a synthesis’, but rather in a ‘conflict or in alliance with each other’ (Schmid, 2008: 33; see also Lefebvre, 2004: 12). This is unlike the Hegelian dialectic of ‘thesis-antithesis-synthesis’ where ‘antithesis’ relates to ‘thesis’ as a negation and ‘synthesis’ requires both thesis and antithesis to exist in order to make sense (Figure 1). The components of Lefebvre’s triads do not negate one another but have an equal relationship. By applying this general principle of triadic relationships ¹ to different fields, Lefebvre arrived at, for example, ‘form-structure-function’, ‘melody-harmony-rhythm’ and his ‘fundamental triadic unity of the space-time conception: space-time-energy’ (Schmid, 2008: 34) (Figure 2). OPEN IN VIEWER

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 2.

A Lefebvrian dialectic.

Space-time-energy

By locking in the space-time duality with a third moment, energy, Lefebvre derived rhythmanalysis, because ‘everywhere where there is interaction between a place, a time, and an expenditure of energy, there is rhythm’ (2004: 15). However, he was not very specific as to what constitutes ‘energy’ or ‘energies’. In Chapter 1 of Rhythmanalysis he described rhythms as that which connects ‘space, time and the energies that unfold here and there’ (2004: 18). Nothing is said about the energy component of this dialectic until Chapter 7 (‘Music and Rhythm’).

Reiterating that ‘time-space-energy’ are ‘necessary for describing and analysing cosmological reality’ (2004: 60), he goes on to assert: ‘Time and space without energy remain inert in the incomplete concept. Energy animates, reconnects, renders time and space conflictual’ (p. 60). One suspects that even Lefebvre himself was not certain as to what constitutes energy, in noting that rhythm is ‘conceived with difficulty’ because ‘it is neither a substance, nor a matter, nor a thing … The concept implies something more. What?’ (p. 64). His own tentative answer was: ‘Perhaps energy [emphasis in original], a highly general concept. An energy is employed, unfolds in a time and a space (a space-time). Isn’t all expenditure of energy accomplished in accordance with a rhythm?’ (p. 65).

In the concluding chapter that follows, Lefebvre then seemed to work back and forth between conflict and alliance to make his point about rhythms:

Alliance supposes harmony between different rhythms; conflict supposes arrhythmia; a divergence in time, in space, in use of energies. The relationship between forces, which requires the domination of one force and draws on the relations of alliance as means (and not ends), is accompanied by a disassembly of times and spaces: of rhythms. (2004: 68)

If rhythm can be disrupted, there must be something that disrupts it. The most likely candidate is energy. ‘Energy’ and ‘forces’ thus have a place in Lefebvre’s dialectic. What exactly is the energy involved remains debatable. However, as one might conclude that where there is rhythm we can expect an interaction between place, time and energy, then whenever and wherever there is a change in any of the three moments, there is a corresponding change in the other two. Every event (e.g. moving home) which happens over space and time must have an impact on the (social, physical and other) energy dimension in this dialectical relationship, and vice-versa. One way of picturing this relationship is perhaps to think of the dialectic as a ball that bounces along wherever its energy takes it, changing its position in time and space.

Rhythmanalysis allows for time within the body, nature and the social (or clock) world to be subsumed under one unifying (transcendent) concept. By using rhythms instead of time, Lefebvre was able to circumvent the previous limitation of ‘dichotomized’ time as being only either social or clock time, sacred or profane, biological or mechanical. We can now talk about the rhythm of something natural (e.g. death) within the context of something social (i.e. funerals) or, conversely, something social (e.g. office parties) within something natural (e.g. seasonal, such as Christmas time).

Waking up to rhythmanalysis

It was not until 2012 that I first encountered rhythmanalysis, reading Lefebvre (2004) in translation. This was after a 12-year break from academia due to family circumstances. My multi-sited PhD fieldwork included participant observation amongst a group of elderly Chinese living in three sheltered schemes ² in an English city. Uniquely for this cohort, most of them shared a common migratory history. As British passport-holders, they had come to Britain from Hong Kong or the New Territories between the 1950s and 1970s to work in the restaurant trade (Chinese takeaways, fish-and-chip shops, restaurants and food distribution; see, for example, Benton and Gomez, 2008). Some of these respondents told me that, as a result of overcrowding, even after they had stopped working at their restaurants – now owned by their adult children – they kept the restaurant worker rhythm of waking at about noon and going to sleep between 2am and 3am. They complained that this was not an ideal arrangement and they needed a new space where they could sleep in a more ‘normal’ (implicitly circadian) pattern. At the start of my fieldwork, I stayed in the guest room of a sheltered scheme and shared communal facilities with the tenants (Lee, 2014b: 1512). What I observed was that, for various reasons, many of the tenants still went to bed at about 2am or 3am (or even later) and woke nearer noontime. Yet these respondents claimed that they were indeed happier despite still not sleeping to the ideal ‘normal’ pattern, which was the declared reason for moving into this sheltered scheme. Now aware of Lefebvre’s dialectic of space-time-energy, I asked retrospectively: what was it with this change of location (space and time) that, even though they maintained a similar waking/sleeping pattern (rhythm), tenants were able to claim a higher level of happiness? Does this new-found contentment constitute an example of ‘energy’: the energy of happiness, in whatever way defined?

It was clear from my participant observation that there was often friction between my respondents and their children (or, more likely, in-laws) when they had previously shared a home. ³ Moving to a different space eliminated this problem. However, it was often deemed shameful for Chinese elders to not be looked after by their adult children. Significantly, because sheltered housing promised 24-hour medical cover, it legitimized their move, thus avoiding the social stigma of admitting friction between generations. To some extent, the clamour for a more ‘normal’ sleeping pattern was in fact a convenient stigma-free way to justify their need to move away from their children. Elsewhere (Lee, 2014b: 1516) I have noted how, when they were asked about a planning application for a nearby pub to be opened for longer hours, one response was that as they did not need to worry about waking up to get ready for work, it did not matter how late the bar was open and the noise that might ensue. Their actual sleep pattern was not significant any more.

The physical move also made them financially more independent. The housing association helped tenants to apply for housing and other benefits, and respondents were now obliged to have their own bank accounts, thus making them financially independent of their children. Previously retirement and rest at home did not automatically lead to happier times. Prior to moving to sheltered housing, most of these tenants lived very isolated lives. They were geographically dispersed due to the nature of the Chinese restaurant business and they were unable to use public transport to visit friends and family on their own because they could not speak or read English (Lee, 2015: 213–14). In sheltered housing they found other tenants who spoke the same languages (Cantonese and Hakka) and with whom they could play cards or watch TV in the communal hall till 2am or 3am. As tenants were not forced to wake up early for work (though some needed to be up early for medication), there was absolutely no pressure at all on these respondents.

I concluded that while certain rhythms (waking and sleeping) remained the same, it was the energy input into the dialectic that had changed (friendly co-tenants instead of grudging children and their in-laws), thereby leading to a very different sense of well-being (e.g. financial independence). It was in realizing that rhythmanalysis – through this space-time-energy paradigm – could be used as a framework to theorize change within my research sample that it became obvious that it could also be used to theorize, for example, migratory experiences.

Rhythmanalysis – The heart of the matter

Lefebvre (2004: 28–30) asserts that there is a rhythm to everything in nature. Just by looking outside his own window he was able to observe in the street below how there was a noticeable change in the way people and cars move when the traffic lights turn from red to green and vice-versa. These various sets of rhythm build up to form a rhythm of the city. Lefebvre (2004: 91) notes, too, how the rhythms of Mediterranean cities differ from those of oceanic cities, because, while the waves and tides of the latter are governed by lunar rhythms, those of the former beat to a different rhythm.

This ‘theory of rhythms’, however, is derived from the consciousness or mindfulness – ‘experience and knowledge’ – of how the body works (Lefebvre, 2004: 67; compare Adam’s phrase ‘rhythmicity of the mindful body’, above). Rhythms are based on an individual’s body and its own constituent rhythms (heart, lungs and other organic systems). These ‘innumerable rhythms’ form an ‘astonishing harmony, an isorhythm’, which can be compared to symphonic music being directed and co-ordinated by a conductor (Meyer, 2008: 150; see also Lefebvre, 2004: 68). They are also played out within a social context – work, home, retirement, amongst friends, children, etc. While every rhythm takes a cue from nature and society, the rhythms are at the same time individually ‘owned’. This element of agency – though limited by the body and its resources – is important. It explains why, within the same cohort of tenants ageing together, individuals could choose different rhythms, such as whether to remain busy or just do as little as possible (Lee, 2014b: 1518).

When the rhythms of a body are in complete harmony, the individual experiences ‘isorhythmia (the equality of rhythms)’ (Lefebvre, 2004: 67). Meyer explains how the ‘pineal gland’ in the brain is now known to determine the daily rhythm of the body, and that Lefebvre had incorporated his understanding of chronobiology in rhythmanalysis whereby the ‘rhythms of the liver, kidneys, spleen, heart, blood pressure, and bodily functions are fitted into the twenty-four-hour day’ (Meyer, 2008: 150–1), or circadian rhythms.

Significantly, these rhythms are not noticeable until something goes awry. Thus the beating of the heart or the rhythm of breathing is taken for granted until the rhythm is disrupted. Lefebvre (2004: 67) used the term arrhythmia to refer to a condition when ‘rhythms break apart, alter and bypass synchronisation’. He expressed concern, for example, that ‘the ever-increasing night-work runs counter to biological circadian rhythms’ and that an ‘increasing number of workers live contrary to their inner biological rhythms’ (Meyer, 2008: 151; see also Lefebvre and Régulier, 2004: 74). We have already noted above how one’s ‘biological clock’ can become ‘out of phase’ (E.T. Hall, 1983: 14) or ‘out of synch’ (Edensor, 2013: 167) after jet travel. For Lefebvre, any structure or organism suffering arrhythmia will always attempt to return to a condition of isorhythmia again. Whenever there is a disruption to the accepted rhythm, such as during illness, when the physical body does not have the energy to discharge the responsibilities that it is usually required to do, it needs rest until the energy level catches up. Sometimes it means having to move to a different space (e.g. to hospital, or a quieter or warmer place).

For most of my respondents, arrhythmia occurred when their ageing bodies could not cope with the task of daily restaurant labour and they were much happier to take on less laborious tasks. Here we see another important aspect of rhythmanalysis: that, as the physical (natural) body changes (problems with the heart, blood pressure, insulin levels, etc.), the rhythm changes, and this ultimately has an impact on that body’s relations within its social context (visits to health practitioners, dependence on carers, etc.). As noted elsewhere (Lee, 2014b: 1519), as these rhythms are individually owned, those migrants who used to be engaged in physical restaurant work and felt that their bodies could not cope with the same rhythms of work were happy with the prospect of change and ‘slowed down’, to become more in tune with the demands (limitations) of their body. The respondents who did not do physical labour – such as a couple of retired teachers whose intellectual ability had not been impeded by their physical ageing – felt less willing to make that adjustment to ‘slow down’. In that sense, the natural ‘intellectual rhythm’ of the retired teachers was out-of-sync with the externally and socially enforced rhythm of retirement.

Sometimes, before finding that equilibrium, two or three rhythms – polyrhythmia – need to be adopted. For example, if a parent finds himself unable to do the school run, he arranges for two or more other people – neighbours, relatives, friends and other parents – to step in until such a time when he himself can resume this responsibility. Quite often arrhythmia leads to a need to develop eurhythmia, when two or more different rhythms become subsumed under one overall (new) rhythm. When it became increasingly difficult for Popo, one of my respondents, to cook for herself, community workers arranged for cooked meals to be delivered to her on Luncheon Club days. ⁴ Popo was then able to avoid cooking for those two days a week. She quickly adapted to a different rhythm, or eurhythmia, cooking on some days and waiting for meals to be delivered on other set days, eating at slightly different times of the day compared to her previous routine (Lee, 2014b: 1519). Note, though, that Lefebvre asserted that there are ‘few isorhythmias, except of a higher order’, such as that of the body, but ‘eurthythmias abound’ (2004: 67). Lefebvre would probably consider the above example of Popo as a eurhythmia at best. For the sake of discussion, I will continue to use the term isorhythmia as the desired end-point after any instance of arrhythmia.

Applying rhythmanalysis

Lefebvre intended rhythmanalysis to be a transdisciplinary concept that could be used to theorize everyday life, ‘from the most natural (physiological, biological) to the most sophisticated’ (2004: 18). Walking would seem the obvious example to be ‘rhythmanalyzed’, as has been done by Edensor (2010) and Chen (2013) to theorize spatial belonging, routinized practices and daily ritual. Jacklin ⁵ chose rhythmanalysis to theorize pedagogy. Based on Lefebvre’s writing on dressage and the implicit requirements of discipline, repetition and habit, Jacklin proposes that as pedagogic practices are by necessity a compromise between ‘the repetitive, the cyclical and that which supervenes them’ (Lefebvre, 2004: 75), teachers could insert ‘regulated difference into contextually based interactions and repetitive routines’ (Jacklin, n.d.: 11) to prevent boredom, both for the teacher and the taught. Instead of the term ‘equilibrium’, Jacklin’s example uses the related idea of recuperation which, as Lefebvre argued in The Critique of Everyday Life, Vol. III, would occur when ‘an idea or project regarded as revolutionary or subversive … is normalized, reintegrated into the existing order, and even revives it’ (2014: 777). (Lefebvre theorized that the capitalist system has endured because any attempt to subvert the system could ultimately be harnessed by the powers-that-be to reinstate the previous system when the novel, or revolutionary, becomes normal.)

This process of disruption (arrhythmia) and return to equilibrium or equality of rhythm (isorhythmia) which oftentimes is a slightly different isorhythm (or more likely a eurhythmia) as a result of recuperation is a useful paradigm to superimpose over other everyday phenomena. Across the life-course we become aware of rhythms that constantly need to be adjusted as we move from one stage of life to another as, for example, when the ‘biological rhythms’ of a child are ‘altered by social life’ (Lefebvre, 2004: 43). In Coming of Age in Samoa, Mead (1928) famously tried to dispel the notion of sturm und drang (G.S. Hall, 1904). Setting aside the controversies about these two works that ensued, we see how sturm und drang can be attributed to (a rhythm of) emotional and biological development which is out-of-sync with (the rhythm of) the way adolescents are actually allowed to act within their particular social and cultural contexts. Eventually these rhythms return to some semblance of isorhythmia and young people complete their education or skills training. Subsequent transitions from student to worker/professional, from being single to being in a partnership, from being a partner to being a parent, all involve dramatic changes in rhythms. Even those at the top of their professional ladder are not spared this disruption in the transition to the less hurried routine of retirement. Thus, looking at my own ageing respondents through this paradigm, those who were happiest were those who were able to accept the changes in their ageing bodies and minds and adjusted their routines according to what they were physically and mentally capable of doing (Lee, 2014b: 1519).

Finding/feeling the rhythms

Anyone who has ever shared a house (particularly with non-family members) will understand the need to be aware of the patterns or rhythms adopted by other housemates in order to avoid conflict, whether this be the use of the toilet, kitchen, TV, washing-machine or some other shared object, service or space. Sometimes, even quite significant changes to rhythms can be tolerated, for example, when one goes on holiday, because one has ‘happy anticipations’ (Gell, 1992: 314, 315, above) instead of a fear of the great unknown, as when one decides to move to another part of the world to seek work or refuge. Nonetheless, we find ourselves making adjustments to our normal rhythm simply because we are in a different space and possibly time zone.

Rhythms also change over the week. For most of us, there is a significant change of rhythm from Friday evenings into Saturday/the weekend when ‘“Saturday Night Fever” bursts out’ (Lefebvre, 2004: 74), and then back into Mondays. This differs somewhat from Thompson’s 1967 account of the working week in previous centuries (above), but it was nevertheless a weekly rhythm. Pantzar and Shove (2012) note how a chatline, market-research company and even online travel agencies, gambling and banking sites in Finland found a dip in activity on a Saturday evening as users slotted their online browsing into an already established weekly pattern. Typically, as daily rhythm changes become more regular, they morph into a weekly, then monthly and annual rhythm, becoming ‘internalized time-maps’ (Gell, 1992: 352, above).

Unlike going on holiday, any experience of open-ended mobility, such as migration – whether forced or voluntary, and for which the actual return date has not been specified – could result in a spectacular disruption to the familiar rhythms of one’s earlier life, on the one hand, and/or ‘long stretches of grinding monotony’ (Gell, 1992: 315, above), on the other, if one were stuck in limbo in a refugee camp. There can be huge geographical and cultural distances to travel, and migrants often have to cope with significant changes in food, language and every other aspect of life. Given such disruption (and isolation), there is little wonder that migrants everywhere tend to seek a return to a former way (rhythm) of life, perhaps through searching out fellow compatriots to speak the language of home, and/or simply savouring familiar foods and smells.

Lefebvre (2004: 27) notes how ‘[to] grasp a rhythm it is necessary to have been grasped by it’. Putting on my scientist hat, my proposal on how rhythmanalysis can be harnessed as a method is through a simple strategy akin to ‘reverse engineering’. Before we can analyse these rhythms and be ‘grasped’ by them, we need to find them. If we are unable to find or observe them, then we have to ‘make them’ (i.e. record them) or get our research participants to do so. Clearly such an approach is much easier with respondents who are literate and who can keep diaries of their daily and weekly rhythms, and with whom continuing contact via electronic means (cyber-research) is not an obstacle.

For participants who may not have the ability to record, such as my own illiterate older migrants, the researcher’s task will be to generate these records. Only after we have done the groundwork of determining these rhythms are we able to then understand (‘grasp’) why these rhythms had been adopted. By using these concrete regularly occurring (rhythmic) events, rhythmanalysts can move away from discussing what can only be observed, as is often the basis of traditional participant observation (co-presence). This is particularly useful where it is not always possible to conduct research at all of the sites, including ‘transfer points’ (Sheller, 2010: vii), that our respondents had been through, even though each would have had an impact on the particular routes taken (see Clifford, 1997) and their current situation (meeting the right people, getting on the right boat, making the decision to leave at a particular time, etc.).

Rhythms are not new to anthropologists. Typically, anthropologists try to spend at least one year in the field in order to observe and participate in the cyclical events that occur year on year. We take, some say arbitrarily, the rhythms within a year as the baseline (e.g. Evans-Pritchard, 1939: 190). Events that might affect our research community but only happen, say, once in four or five years (for example, the Olympics, the Football World Cup, general elections) become incidental. Even though these are cyclical events, they become treated as linear. Simplistically, rhythmanalysis as a research tool requires us to ‘zoom in’ and break down this period of one year into ever smaller units, to note what differences and similarities in rhythm can be observed between seasons, months, weeks and days. By the same token we can also ‘zoom out’, look at increasingly bigger units of time as appropriate, noting what Irvine (2014) and Ingold (1986) have said about our human existence from the perspective of ‘millions of years’ (above).

It has already been mentioned that our rhythms during week days are different from weekends. Meticulously listing the patterns (making the rhythms obvious), and then questioning respondents on the differences and similarities (if any), would give us an idea of the different space, time and energy involved in that activity or event and offers us inroads to asking the correct questions, to ‘understand something of the how and why these regularities take place’ (Willis, 2000: xiii).

A hypothetical case

It was arrhythmia – long stints in non-academic and caring roles resulting in my qualifications and experience being out-of-sync with my chronological age – that led to my current status as ‘armchair anthropologist’. ⁶ Without the access to research funding I am not able to put this toolkit into practice. I have therefore opted to emulate the armchair anthropologists of old by using published research to authenticate my theorizing. Coming from Singapore where it is almost impossible to find a household without a foreign domestic helper (FDH), ⁷ I have tried to observe their demeanour when visiting friends, but asking direct questions was often not possible. Given that it is highly unlikely that a researcher would be able to observe the FDH at work in the absence of their employer, I have chosen to present a hypothetical scenario of possible Sunday rhythms for Belinda from ‘Katuspur’ (which could be the Philippines, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, etc.) who works as a FDH in ‘Mistrania’ (which could be Singapore, Hong Kong, any Gulf state). I will then postulate where an analysis of these rhythms might lead using other available literature.

Sunday in ‘Mistrania’: Up at 6.30am. Ma’am still sleeping. Bath. ⁸ Cook lunch for myself and friends. Clean up kitchen. Check with Ma’am that everything was OK. Meet Mindy at bus stop. Take bus to Plaza Cook. Join Imee and her friends for picnic. Leave at 5pm to get home by 6pm.

Sunday in ‘Katuspur’: Up at 7.30am. Bath. Help mum cook breakfast and prepare lunch. Eat breakfast. Clean up. 10am attend Mass. Back home. Help mum cook lunch. Lunch – lasts 2 hours. Relax. Nap. 5pm light snack. Clean up. Bed by 9pm.

Examples of questions we could ask:

If it is supposed to be your day off, why do you wake up so early?

Three underlying principles

My reading of rhythmanalysis suggests that there are at least three principles that are worth noting when using rhythmanalysis in research. ⁹ Using the migrant worker as a case study, the first is examining the differences to understand the changes due to change of time, space or energy. We can make a comparison of the respondent’s current daily or weekly rhythms with the same rhythms in their country of origin, or even previous points of migration, or a comparison between the rhythms at the start of their migratory journey and their current more settled rhythm. Comparing Belinda’s Sunday rhythms and the Monday rhythms of another FDH, Cathy (in Constable, 1997: 92, 98–9), we might ask: why do you bath at 6.30am on Sunday and only in the evening on other days? If there are similarities (‘sameness’ or repetition) then the question could be: under what circumstances might this pattern change, and why? Or: were there instances when this pattern changed, and why? We might find, as Constable did (and as I have done), that there are strict curfews imposed even on their ‘rest days’ (1997: 90–1).

Constable also highlights how many FDHs do not have a separate private space from their work space. Sometimes their only sleeping space is in the common area, even in the kitchen, or shared with a member of the family. (I have observed an FDH sleeping on the floor of the room that her elderly charge slept in.) While some were ostensibly given time off or had finished work for the day, the fact that their ‘private’ sleeping space continued to be occupied by others means that they did not get proper rest (Constable, 1997: 91). We also begin to understand the level of control over the FDH’s body, such as length of hair and time of bathing (Constable, 1997: 97, 98), which was a big issue with the Filipino maids who, for cultural and health reasons, hated to be made to bathe in the evening. Many employers neither feed their FDHs enough food nor let them cook their own familiar foods (Law, 2001: 277), thus making the eating together of familiar foods on Sundays all the more significant.

Considering Lefebvre’s idea of isorhythmia, the second principle is that of returning to a harmony of rhythms, usually incorporating those familiar to oneself. How do any of these activities represent or point to a tendency toward a previous norm? Writing about Sunday rhythms, Law (2001: 265–6) describes how, in the ‘Little Manila’ of Central Hong Kong, Filipino FDHs gather to ‘eat Filipino food, read Filipino newspapers/magazines and consume products from an abundant number of Filipino speciality shops’. What insight can we gain from such ‘ritual’ gatherings where food from home is ‘ceremonially eaten’ and finding places where they can ‘feel at home’ (Law, 2001: 267, 269)? What is the place or nature of fictional or real family (sisters, aunts, cousins) within this context (Law, 2001: 274)? How might these be viewed as attempts to reconstitute familial patterns through a ‘conscious invention of home’ (Law, 2001: 275)? How does one theorize the way FDHs gravitate towards the different parts within a public park according to the ‘map of the Philippines’ which reinforces their regional differences (Law, 2001: 274; compare with ‘postcolonial simulacra’ in Gupta and Ferguson, 1992: 10)?

These principles behind rhythmanalysis can guide our questioning to gain insights into the multi-sensory minutiae to help us to see how these FDHs were controlled even on their ‘rest days’ by other people (Ma’am), the geography (where they could go), public transport (how long it takes to get home), the law (statutory rest days) and how they create rhythms to simulate memories of home. Indeed, ethnographers must remember the admonition by Agar (2008: 12) that, ‘Whatever else we do, we have to connect local ethnographic detail with the nature of the state, the nature of the world.’

The third principle – which is perhaps a more obscure point when researching younger migrant respondents as in the hypothetical case – arises out of the idea of recuperation. After long periods of time the unfamiliar often becomes normal, when intentions may be ‘turned against the initial design’ (Lefebvre, 2014: 780) and the unthinkable might become acceptable. This is another natural consequence of the body being at the heart of rhythmanalysis: individuals retain the choice to decide how they prefer to live their lives. For example, Pærregaard (1997) notes how some Quechua Indians from Tapay, an Andean village, had idealized their home village as ‘paradise’ and found it impossible to re-integrate into their home culture because of the many changes that had taken place when memories marked into their pre-migration bodies were no longer in sync with reality. My older Chinese migrants – despite initially finding the British winters too harsh – also spoke of how after 30 years in this country they found the humid summers in Hong Kong too much of a physical strain to their bodies so that, despite being given the choice of returning to Hong Kong, they opted to retire in Britain (Lee, 2014b: 1508–9), having found a new isorhythm. In much the same way, their move into sheltered housing was an unthinkable notion that had, in time, become acceptable.

(Not) starting from square one

Researchers have different ways of starting a conversation. Asking informants about the intimate details of their daily lives at the start of fieldwork is not advisable, and so one would probably avoid starting with, ‘What’s the first thing that you do when you get out of bed?’ Rhythmanalysis would be most effective when practised alongside the accepted wisdom of traditional ethnography, such as starting with ‘grand tour questions’ (Spradley, 1979). One could map out the major chronological landmarks in the informant’s day or week before moving into what I have called ‘ever smaller units’. Respondents are usually more ready to open up about more personal matters as the ethnographer wins their trust, which distinguishes the collection of rhythms from, say, a questionnaire survey.

All the other ethnographic interview techniques – using open-ended, close-ended and probing questions, life histories, and folktales, for example – still apply (see Fetterman, 1998: 37–62). Rhythmanalysis as a method is at risk of becoming a very cerebral exercise, and Lefebvre (2004: 21) challenges the rhythmanalyst to use ‘all his senses’ and ‘not neglect smell, scents, the impressions that are so strong in the child’, particularly as society attempts to neutralize these to become ‘the colourless, the odourless and the insensible’ (compare Stoller, 1989). Amongst my older informants, many of whom had suffered failing eyesight and loss of hearing, the sense of smell appeared to remain very strong, and there were many complaints about the smell of cooking, smell of fish and smell of burning (joss sticks and joss paper) which regularly led to arguments, smoke alarms being turned off and associated fire hazards. At the same time, smells can also evoke memories, and this was useful in helping them recall significant experiences. Indeed researchers must deploy ‘the use of five-sense channels for recording … social atmosphere, emotional colour and unspoken assumptions’ (Willis, 2000: xiii), even if research is restricted to emails, tweets and other forms of electronic documentation.

On a practical level, with a sample that is literate it might be possible to get informants to map out roughly, either in text or pictures (along a timeline), the patterns for that section or duration (‘time-space diaries’). It would be useful to keep these original materials (or copies) for further analysis and cross-checking later on, which means that a sensible filing and indexing system would be helpful to make retrieval easier further along the research or writing process. With illiterate informants such as my older Chinese migrants, the ethnographer would have to elicit the patterns, check that what was recorded was indeed accurate and then only ask the questions around these patterns.

Summary

In this paper I have attempted to show the versatility of Lefebvre’s transdisciplinary concept of rhythmanalysis and how it can be transformed into a toolkit to aid research on populations when co-presence is not feasible, either for physical or ideological reasons. Examples include migrants at various points of their journeys and workers, both at the lowest and highest levels where traditional participant observation is not possible. I started by showing that Lefebvre was able to circumvent the seemingly intractable problem of defining time – often confined to dualistic and opposing categories – in anthropological studies by infusing the space-time dualism with ‘energy’ to create a triadic dialectic of space-time-energy, thereby making it possible to deal with natural time within the social and vice-versa. The ‘energy’ in these space-time rhythms is governed by the heart and other bodily rhythms, which are also affected by social contexts. Implicitly, while every individual is to some degree restricted by his or her own personal rhythms, they could also have a choice as to how they decide to live within their particular social contexts. Therefore, by studying rhythms which are everywhere and are constantly subject to disruption, moderation and reinstatement and the reasons why they change or remain the same, we are able to understand the persons caught up in these ‘endless web[s] of rhythms’ (E.T. Hall, 1983: 15, above).

Having examined the theory behind rhythmanalysis, I suggested three principles that could inform our research: (1) examining the differences and similarities, (2) identifying the tendencies to isorhythmia and (3) being alert to the possibility of recuperation to a ‘new normal’, particularly after significant time-lapses. I presented a hypothetical scenario of how rhythms could be listed, the possible questions a researcher could ask, and then used available literature to show how some of the answers might look. The hypothetical scenario could well have been any organization facing an external crisis (e.g. financial failure, hostile takeover, global recession), or an internal change (e.g. leadership, IT system, business process redesign). Using the same three principles we can examine how individuals within it continue to ‘tick along’, the efforts they may or may not make to return to some kind of isorhythmia and/or how recuperation means these individuals progress to accept the new as normal. It was noted from the start that the analysis of rhythms in anthropological research is not new. What is new here is that the ‘toolkit’ is embedded in the basic principles of Lefebvre’s notion of rhythmanalysis, which not only provides a structure for data gathering and then making sense of the data gathered, but also fleshes out the epistemology behind the importance of recording and interpreting rhythms. If this toolkit can work in absentia within one context, then it should be applicable – with appropriate modifications – in other research spaces where traditional participant observation is not possible.