The limits of bodies: Gatherings and the problem of collective presence

Abstract

Modern social collectivities-such as nations, publics, and political movements-depend upon the capacity of media technologies to transcend bodily proximity. The contemporary proliferation of such remote sociality may seem to render physical gatherings superfluous. But at times, people go to great pains to manifest collectivities by assembling bodies in one place. This article explores what we should make of cases in which it is not enough for collectivities to be projected, abstracted, imagined, or invoked-times when bodies together are all that will do. Presenting research from India and Laos, and in dialogue with reflections on the COVID-19 pandemic, we consider those cases in which bodies are thought to be essential for making collectivities. We show that it is the limits and weaknesses of bodies-that they require sleep and food, that they are vulnerable to police batons and thrown stones, that they can usually only be in one place at a time-that often make them potent materials for building mass actors. Sketching a comparative anthropology of gathering, we reflect on what these limits afford and rethink what bodies might mean for future modes of social connection.