The beat of the mountain: a transdisciplinary rhythmanalysis of temporal landscapes

ABSTRACT

This article discusses how studying rhythms can help us better understand and manage spatiotemporal tensions in social-ecological landscapes, highlighting the potential of rhythmanalysis as a tool for crossing scientific and methodological borders. The empirical material is from a study of human and non-human users and uses of the highly valued Dovrefjell mountain area in Norway, with particular attention to the much-debated Snøheim Road. We take an in-depth view of three different, but interrelated, rhythms at Dovrefjell and discuss how intervening through rhythms can be a fruitful way to approach landscape management. By simultaneously ‘listening’ to different rhythms, this approach helps us to understand and reduce spatiotemporal tensions between social, cultural and ecological uses of a landscape.

KEYWORDS:

• Landscape
• rhythmanalysis
• interdisciplinarity
• wild reindeer
• recreation
• land management
• Dovrefjell
• Norway

Acknowledgements

We are greatly indebted to Grey Osterud for her valuable comments, proof reading and criticism of this article. We also thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive criticism and suggestions how to clarify our arguments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.