From Judith Butler’s Notes Towards a Performative Theory of Assembly, from pg 17:

Asserting that a group of people is still existing, taking up space and obdurately living, is already an expressive action, a politically significant event, and that can happen wordlessly in the course of an unpredictable and transitory gathering. Another “effective” result of such plural enactments is that they make manifest the understanding that a situation is shared, contesting the individualizing morality that makes a moral norm of economic self-sufficiency precisely under conditions when self-sufficiency is becoming increasingly unrealizable. Showing up, standing, breathing, moving, standing still, speech, and silence are all aspects of a sudden assembly, an unforeseen form of political performativity that puts livable life at the forefront of politics.

Categories: Pre 2020 reading notes

Tagged as: assembly crowds fragile movements judith butler movements

Mark