Redevelopment of Dashashwamedha Ghat, Vegetable and Fish market, Varanasi

Abstract

While the concept of place has been continuously present in Western philosophy for over two millennia, this hasn't been always explicit, and theories varied broadly (Casey, 1997). With an integrative approach that aims to avoid the common reductionism of place to phenomenology or social construct alone, this paper uses a broad, open and dynamic conception of place, as “integration of the space and time based activities” as “spatio temporal event” (Massey, 2005). Drawing on Deleuzian philosophy, place is seen as a territorialised assemblage, constituted of temporal connections of spatial and social elements, at and in-between various scales (Landa, 2006). A good starting point for a comprehensive analysis of place as temporal socio-spatial phenomena is provided by Lefebvre's proposed rhythmanalysis, a science aimed at investigating time and space together, as "localised time" or "temporalised space" (Lefebvre H. , 2011). As Lefebvre's approach was decidedly from the abstract to the concrete, his theoretical oeuvre's limited empirical underpinning has been a recurring point of critique, including by urban sociologists Chombart de Lauwe and Castells (Stanek, 2011). As it has been shown that comprehensive empirical explorations of place have to be based on multiple methods, including spatial analysis, discourse analysis and phenomenology (Dovey, 1999) and considering the earlier emphasis given to the later two, this paper explores new methods of place-analysis focused on the connection between the spatial, social and temporal aspects of place. This approach is from the particular to the abstract, complementary to Lefebvre's progression from the abstract to the concrete. The daily rhythms of the site and the underlying urban morphology have been captured through spatial analysis, pedestrian surveys, mapping and time-lapse video recording