The Dictionary of Human Geography

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Suggested reading

Bonta and Protevi (2004); Marston, Jones and

Woodward (2005).

rhythmanalysis A term coined by the

French Marxist Henri Lefebvre (1901–91) to

describe a mode of analysis characterized by

its receptivity to temporal dimensions, parti-

cularly moments, cycles, tempo, repetition

and difference (see time). Lefebvre (2004

[1992]) is concerned not merely with the analy-

sisofrhythms – bodily, social, daily, seasonal,

lunar – but also analysisthroughrhythm. In

the latter case he is particularly interested

in the way in which the study of rhythms

can shed light on the workings of the modern

city,everyday life, thebodyand capitalist

production. Lefebvre shows howspaceand

time need to be thought together rather than

separately, and how a non-linear conception

of time and history is a crucial balance to his

famous rethinking of the production of

space. Lefebvre’s conception of rhythmanaly-

sis may be contrasted with the more mechan-

ical, high modernist conceptualizations of

Torsten Ha ̈gerstrand’stime-geography, but

also can be profitably related to Ermarth’s

(1992) account of the crisis of representational

time underpostmodernism(cf.representa-

tion) and her own, quintessentially rhythmic

sensibility that emphasizes repetition and pulse

rather than linear sequence. se

Suggested reading

Lefebvre (2004 [1992]).

ribbon development Development strung

along major roads within, on the edges of, or

stretching beyond urban areas. It is generally

associated with commercial establishments

looking for cheap, easily accessible sites with

high visibility to large volumes of passing

automobile traffic. Ribbon developments are

perhaps epitomized by the classic American

‘highway strip’, where development is often no

more than one block deep on each side of the

road. Celebrated by some as classic Americana,

as worthwhile vernacular architecture, or as the

spatial manifestation of market forces, ribbon

development is increasingly criticized as an

element of socially, economically and environ-

mentally problematic urbansprawl. em

rights A right is a power or privilege to

which one is justly entitled. Rights are often

distinguished from duties (i.e. the behaviour

expected of others, including the state) and

privileges (that which can be conferred or

invoked). Rights presuppose corresponding

obligations upon others to do something, or

to refrain from doing something. My right to

freedom of speech, for example, requires the

state to abstain from summarily repressing my

speech. Rights are capable of several mean-

ings, depending upon the context within

which they are put to work. So, for example,

moral and formal/legal rights may differ.

Within national jurisdictions (cf. human

rights), formal rights can be subdivided.

Civil rightsrefer to those entitlements of per-

sonal liberty given to all citizens bylaw(such

aspropertyrights, freedom of association,

religion, movement, and protection from arbi-

trary arrest).Political rightsare those that bear

on the establishment and operation of the

state, such as the right to vote.Social rights

entail the entitlements of citizens to social

benefits, such ashealthoreducation. The

political priority accorded these different

rights and their intersection is, of course, a

crucial issue for any political community.

Debate also turns on which entities can be

legal rights-holders: Are we to includechil-

dren?animals? The insane? Ecosystems?

Rights are central to both statecraft and social

life, and have become a standard feature of the

constitutional apparatus of the modernstate.

Rights-claims carry special force: in ascribing

rights to certain social relations, we ‘shift them

out of the realm of the merely desirable and into

the domain of the morally essential’ (Jones,

1995, p. 4). For Laclau and Mouffe (1985), a

vocabulary of rights allows for the politicization

ofpowerrelations. That which had been cast as

subordination (i.e. as something that appeared

natural and unchanging) can be reframed as

oppression (i.e. unjust and contingent).

However, others worry at the ways in which

rights can cast politicalsubjectivityin par-

ticular and limited ways, and reproduce con-

tingent visions of the social and political world.

For this reason, argues one strain of critical

scholarship, we should be sceptical of the pro-

gressive potential of rights. Others counter by

arguing that rights are ‘protean and irresolute

signifiers’ (Brown 1997b, p. 86), whose vary-

ing and often expansionary meanings can be

put to work in diverse political sites.

What, then, of the geography of rights? It is

clear thatspaceshapes the ways in which rights

are construed, contested and put to work

(Blomley, 1994; Blomley and Pratt, 2001).

Liberal rights (seeliberalism), most particu-

larly, help produce, and operate within, sharply

demarcated spaces. The way this ‘sociopoli-

tical map’ (Walzer, 1984, p. 315) is produced

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RHYTHMANALYSIS