Crowds

What exactly is a crowd? How do crowds differ from other large gatherings of people? And how do they transform emotions, politics, or faith? In Crowds, contributors draw on their experiences and expertise to reflect on their encounters with crowds. Each chapter examines a particular crowd or conception of crowdedness to provide an analysis of how, when, where-and with whom-crowds form in different contexts, as well as their purpose and the practical effect the experience has on both the participants and their environment. The wide selection of case studies ranges from the crowds that form every year during the Hajj, to New Year celebrations in China, commuters on the Delhi metro, public prayer in Nigeria, online mobs in Bangladesh, and the crowds that have emerged during protest movements in Thailand and Syria. Crowds makes a key contribution to establishing an anthropological theory of crowds and will be an essential read for both students and researchers.

Megan Steffen is an Independent Scholar, and received her PhD in Anthropology from Princeton University, USA.

FiguresContributorsForeword - John Borneman, Series EditorAcknowledgements0. Introduction - Megan Steffen, User Experience Researcher, Mountain View, CA, USA1. The Syrian Revolution: Crowds, the Political Field, the Political Subject - John Borneman, Princeton University, USA2. The Disappearance of the Crowd and the Rise of Dissent in Thailand - Tyrell Haberkorn, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA3. Spectacles of Piety: Prayer and the Politics of Mass Arousal in Democratic Nigeria - Ebenezer Obadare, University of Kansas, USA 4. Crowds and Transformations: On the Pious Crowds of the Hajj - Abdellah Hammoudi, Princeton University, USA5. "Too Many People": Crowds and Cliques in Contemporary China - Megan Steffen, User Experience Researcher, Mountain View, CA, USA6. Regarding Others: Metro Crowds, Metro Publics, Metro Mobs - Rashmi Sadana, George Mason University, USA7. Emotional Entrainment in Crowds and Other Social Formations - Douglas Hollan, UCLA, USA8. Enduring Crowds: The Ritual Molding of the Anthropos in the Prolonging of Political Protest - Bjørn Thomassen, Roskilde University, Denmark9. The Ethics of the Digital: Crowds and Popular Justice in Bangladesh Nusrat - Sabina Chowdhury, Amherst College, USA10. Death on the Bund: Crowd Control and the Chinese Dream in Shanghai - Scott Moskowitz, Princeton University, USAGuide to Further Reading - Megan Steffen, User Experience Researcher, Mountain View, CA, USASelected BibliographyNotes