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.