lefebvre and rythm

Just a quick idea. I have tended to not use Lefebvre so much on this research, althought he is always already there on my basic ideas of space. However I was thinking how does Lefebvre deal with mobility, and of course in P of S, his whole notion of space has embodied movement at the centre, his notion of production, is not abstract but highlighting the physical work in space. Reproduction is not only economic but biological and social, and again in space.  
It seems to be his late work Rythmanalysis (published in 1985, 11 years latter to his p of S) one of the more explicit discussions of the relation of time and space and thus in a way movement too. Have not sat down to red it, but what I get. He distinguishes cyclical form linear rythms,  the first based on repetition and the other on flow. He makes a whole reflection on perception but I am not very interested in that discussion. (I will have to go back to bergson eventually, he is a tough project, see how lef, bergson relate and how they are diff form merleau ponty, uff too psychological).
What I understand is, in a very marxist way, he says something of the sort of: ok what we experience as the social world (and he puts the body and the body of the analysts in the centre again) is just a end result of rythms unfolding in time-space, we have to follow these unfoldings and ask how they actually work, not be fooled by the apparent staticism." I make my own marxist example, the commodity or a trivial habit, its fetishism,  being there so nice and comfortable but then what are the rythms that make it and what is it doing in the log run. In the end he is saying something  similar to Lautour in reassembling, I think, with the difference of the fetish (I am still not sure where I stand with the fetish, I tend to like ZIzek critique to Ideology as the structure of the world and not as false ideas, so then to think of fetish has no point). Also if we tarsnported to historical time it has something of the long duree maybe.
Anyways I need to study this better but two things, one, the distinction of circular and flow is good for thinking the Toba travels, two, is useful to think about the experience in the city of the Tobas as adjusting their rythms to the one of the city, from naps and sleep-awake times, to speed of walking in the city, inetrvals in a conversation, there is a lot of that in the arrival and the urge to go back.

Mmm ok maybe this rythm is not exactly the same as mobility but a concept that can be combined with it, to think about  mobilities.
     

        

habit and mad men

I wrote this a year ago and never published it, I was probably planing to make it longer. Here it goes.


This blog has changed quite a bit since the times of my comps and the time I was dwelling in exciting books. It is still my scarp book on whatever. Now, with interrupted sleep, three months of maternity leave that just ended, and a few hours of work, I have somehow done an important update in pop culture, and series in particular. If most of the shows are viewed with Rendija, Mad Men, is the one I reserve for myself, for the long hour of sun set when F is to tired to play but resists to sleep.   

I watched the complete first season did not get the excitement everyone was talking about. Yes, the art is great, to be transported to the 60s is exciting, the acting is good, it shows interesting stuff "how much people smoked! sexual harassment is not even a word! men in power could drink at work and anytime!" And yes Mad Men is about women, and puts us in a position in which you cry for feminism to appear. In regards to feminism however is a very delicate path they chose, I am not totally convinced it is only about the inevitabilty of feminism but also almost a nostalgic view on what was to be a man back then in some moments it even seems apologetic "look gender relations where like this and it was not that bad after all, women looked beautiful back then spending two hours a day making their hair" it is a complicated deviation.

It was however the second season the one that captured me finally. Maybe because I could connect to the characters more as it presented more dimensions of each,  and is not about men drinking whiskey and the pretty secretaries they sleep with. But it was the accumulation of small  habits what kept me wanting to watch more.  The secretary with a total sunburn on her skin, the wife cleaning after a picnic by throwing garbage to the grass, the texture of the sofas, the dyes making dresses red in a certain way, the kids lying on the floor over a synthetic carpet  watching TV, commuting on the train, to bring all this back and show us how all is so similar and only slightly different today, I think that is the key of the series, at least to me.     

Guha

Despues de 2 anyos tengo un rato para trabajar en mi lugar preferido de la biblioteca donde milagrosamente hay lugar. Acabo de tomar un cafe con un amigo (momentos q le dan sentido al estar aca, en esta institucion horrible) con el que discutimos esto de ser migrantes, el futuro laboral incierto, los planes para terminar y el sentido de la politica de uno aca en canada. Trato de reproducir la charla por que dijo cosas tan interesantes q me apena no haberlo grabado.
Nos convoca hablar de los barrios marginales en Delhi y Bs As y que perspectivas estamos usando para pensarlos. Me habla que su trbajo va a ser mas bien una etnografia del estado y de la dependencia de los barrios en los que trabajo de la politicas publicas. Esos barrios pueden barrerse de un plumazo ante cualquier cambio de politica. Le hablo de las perspectivas q se entrecruzan en mi caso, por un lado toda la lit de marginalidad pero q no es lo que quiero mostrar, por otro lado migraciones y redes pero mucho de eso me aburre, sin embargo tengo q halar de eso y rescatar las cosas interesantes, latour por un lado, mencionar las linea en migraciones pero no es exactamente lo mismo. Ahi entra Guha (que reaparece despues del seminario de verano hace 3 mas de anyos ) yo digo territorialidad, consanguinidad, contiguidad, el completa: inversion, transmision, comunicacion no escrita, insurgencia. Me dice q le resulta apropiado qu se ve la conxion, q le resuena a lo que no se quien llama insurgent citizenship, en el sentido de grupos sociales que no encajan hacen cosas no ilegales pero fuera de la norma y ahi desafian la norma, soon insurgentes por el mero estar ahi y ocupar un espacion en la ciudad. Y si me dice, al parecer los Tobas estan ahi y estan haciendo todo eso, conectandose por estos medios informales, q se los considero iracionales, supersticiosos y prepolitticos, pero Guha dice q hay q dar credito en si mismos no como algo pre o proto como diria Hobsbawm o como intenta capturar el nacionalismo indio. Le pregunto si hay mucha critica, me dice q no, q se lo toma en serio, q esta ok seguirlo a el. Hablamos de James Scott como seguidor de esta linea, le digo por q me gusta mas Guha, aunq Scott no esta mal, lo descartan muy rapido me parece a mi.

(pasa un pibe con una remaera del union, solo faltan 15 min, vamos al strike de una hora en un depto, estoy por cerrar esto tambien)  

Le hablo de soberania y si  llevar a Guha para el lado de Foucault, no una soberania alternativa pero si superpuesta. Me dice q suena bien, pero q si no estoy haciendo un argumento en relacion al estado y la historia de la construccion de soberania suena un poco superficial llevarlo ahi, para q introducir el concepto sin mirar el proceso en profundidad, no gano nada. So what.

Despues seguimos hablando de varias cosas, esto es lo central q queria reproducir rapido. Mas luego