Rhythmanalysing the urban runner: Pildammsparken, Malmö

This article is written together with Tim Edensor and Johan Wirdelöv, and is published in Applied Mobilities. 

Abstract: In this article we discuss the development of urbanized running culture by exploring how the embodied rhythms of running interact with other urban rhythms in a park. The analysis focuses on the timings, sensations and materialities produced through running, and how the rhythms of running intersect with the materialities and rhythms of others. The investigation draws on interviews, observations and a running diary undertaken at Pildammsparken in central Malmö. Our research shows that while the runner, in endeavouring to align with the rhythms of others, may becoming a more disciplined figure, running in the park is more concerned with practising a sharing of space than moving on auto-pilot. Consequently, running is largely a mobile rhythmic practice that negotiates and adapts to co-produce eurhythmic choreographies in this particular urban location.

Pildammsparken, Malmö (map by Johan Wirdelöv)

Temporality of Territorial Production - The Case of Stortorget, Malmö

This article is now published in Social & Cultural Geography (2017), 18, 5, pp. 683-705. 

Abstract: In recent years, we have seen the development of a more relational approach to territoriality. This perspective, which focuses on events rather than space, also opens up for an elaboration of temporal aspects of territorial production. In this study, I investigate the central urban square, Stortorget, in Malmö, Sweden, in order to develop a discussion of a time-space territorology. In 1978, Korosec-Serfaty performed a thorough study of the square, observing its everyday activities. The present study compares territorial productions at Malmö’s Main Square during 1978 with those of 2013. The results of the study indicate a change of time-space production in which temporary territorial appropriations and tactics tend to become shorter in duration, whereas the number of temporary and large-scale territorial strategies has increased and the role of these become more important. The study also shows how these territorial transformations include changes (in pace, rhythm, temporal salience and scale) that seem to vertically stabilise the territorial structure of the square, and thus decrease both territorial complexity and the possibilities for new publics to evolve

Stortorget, Malmö (2013)

Stortorget, Malmö (1978)

Stortorget, Malmö (1912), with the airship Hansa.

Stortorget, Malmö (1896), the unveiling of the statue Karl X Gustav.