The Soundscape of Becoming Place: Rhythms and Voices of Village des Tanneries

Abstract

Place can be understood as not a fixed geographical location, but as an event that emerges in the encounter between continually transforming materialand human elements, social relations and practices; that place is composed
of strands of human experience, memory, histories and stories in a particular material setting. This article draws on Amin and Thrift’s “ontology of encounter” and Lefebvre’s method of rhythmanalysis to explore the complex interactions of geography, social practices and city environment. An “auditory turn” offers ways of thinking about the mobilities, encounters and narratives of an urban neighbourhood that combine and merge to give rise to a soundscape. A turn toward the sensory and auditory offers new paths for analysis in urban geography, mobilities and infrastructure studies.