Abstract: As the expansion of the universe continues to accelerate, the internal secular evolution of galaxies becomes more important as the distance between galaxies generally increases. The largest galaxies in the local group provide an ideal laboratory due to their proximity to study the secular evolution processes driven by internal dynamical structures, such as a bar and spiral arms. I will review the key dynamical properties of local group galaxies, how they are distributed along the Hubble sequence, the signatures for ongoing secular evolution, and in turn how we may infer the dynamical properties of a central bar from such signatures.  Recent attempts in dynamical modelling of barred galaxies based on stellar and gaseous kinematics are also discussed.