ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on people’s critical stance to meetings and how they deal with the fact that they still are supposed to be present and participate in them. In our data, we have found few open protests but rather a range of examples of indirect resistance to the meeting form, manifested through micro-practices such as scribbling, doodling, daydreaming, or the use of cell phones. People can also form a temporary community during short intervals and enjoy their unity through making fun of what happens or display their moral indignation about meaningless meetings. We analyze these and other maneuvers as tactics in the meeting regime, situated in the interplay between involvement and disinvolvement. There is often some space in which side-involvements may take place, providing opportunities not only for hidden relaxation but also for sneaky work and secret islands of relative freedom (e.g., gaming). The chapter takes the boredom of being stuck in a meeting as a point of departure and explores how people deal with it. It gives us a picture of the underlife of today’s meeting culture, which paradoxically sustains the endless chains of meetings. As members of various formal gatherings develop and employ tactics to survive rigidity and boredom, they simultaneously contribute to stability.
