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The Sonorous Body and the Importance of Chanting in a Political Protest

Sofía Ugarte

Abstract

Este artículo analiza cómo se generan los gritos en una manifestación

política y qué efectos se producen en los involucrados. Gracias a la

observación participante de corte fenomenológico en una protesta contra del

gobierno Chino, describiré el proceso que experimentó la muchedumbre, las

expresiones corporales de un monje budista y luego terminaré con el relato

de mi propia experiencia. La discusión sobre fenómenos sonoros y

corporales permitirá problematizar diversos temas de índole individual y

social: la simultaneidad y superposición del espacio público y privado, los

límites del yo (self), el cuerpo como fuente de conocimiento y poder, la

relación cuerpo-expresión-emoción. Ellos se conjugarán para dar forma al

argumento central el cual es que la integración de múltiples individuos es

alcanzable somáticamente a través de la acción sonora realizada por los

participantes. Las conclusiones me conducirán a considerar al grito como

una forma relevante de compromiso y acción política.

Opening

Chants are rhythmic reciting or singing of words and sounds. Its physical origins are in the

human body. Chanting is a body practice involved in religious festivities and cultural

phenomena involving large groups of people. How it is generated and what effect it creates

in the people participating is what I will analyze in this paper. As an observer and an active

participant in the protest against the Chinese government held in the city of San Francisco I

will describe the unfolding event from a wider scope and focus on the corporeal

manifestations of a Buddhist monk present that day. Also, I will narrate my own experience

as it contributes to this study of sonorous and corporeal experience.

The description enabled me to problematize the simultaneity and overlapping of personal

and public space, the boundaries of the self, and the body as a source of knowledge and

power, and its relation to expression and emotion. They constantly refer to the core

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argument I stress which is that the integration of a multiplicity of individuals into a

unified collectivity is achieved somatically through the experience of sonorous

action emerging from the participants. In the context of a large mass of people from all

backgrounds, gathered to protest against a political injustice, the chanting synchronizes the

participants into one voice that supports the cause. Based on the phenomenological

approach to an embodied methodology of social research[i], I will propose the sonorous

experience as the generator of intersubjectivity amongst the participants, myself included.

My findings can contribute to the consideration of chanting as a form of important political

engagement and action. I end up with personal speculations of the consequences this may

have for the body and its capacity to position the human being as a political actor.

The Crowd:

From Anxious Multiplicity to Chanted Unification

San Francisco is crowded, thousands of demonstrators are gathered there to demonstrate

against China, filling the streets and intersections of the city. Today, the Olympic torch is

passing through the city due to the Olympic Games held this year (2008) in Beijing. Among

the causes the protesters are fighting for are China’s control of Tibet, and the violence with

which the Chinese government has clamped down on dissidents. They are calling for

Tibetan independence. The crowd forms a large big body, a contingent that resists

symbolically to Beijing’s policy and injustice. Banners supporting numerous causes are held

up high, Tibetan flags are waved over our heads. Many of the participants are wearing

headbands and painting their faces with political slogans in favor of Tibet. There are

Buddhist monks dressed in their burgundy robes, men and women of all ages, children and

even babies; multiple colors and figures invade the scenario, the situation is chaotic yet very

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pacifistic. Overall, I am not able to appreciate a uniform dress code or even a uniform symbol

that represents all the protesters.

What I feel as the unifying power of this event is the chanting that is being done by the

participants: regardless of age, social milieu, ethnic origin or sex. The people gathered there

are able to yell and scream out loud a unified message. Thousands of people are being lead

by a protester with a megaphone, who says a phrase and the rest repeats in unison. Chants

like “Human Rights in Tibet”, “China out of Tibet now”, “Free Tibet now”, “Free Burmese now”,

“China lies, people die”, “Shame shame China shame”, “Hu Jintao is a butcher”, “Hu Jintao is a

killer”, “Hu Jintao is a genocide”, “Stop the genocide in Tibet”, “Liar liar Chinese government”;

are sung by everybody.

No matter what is the background or beliefs held by each individual participant, everybody

is able to sing out loud the messages against the Chinese government, the multiplicity of

voices and bodies these voices belong to are unified into one whole being. The chants are

powerful. In the first place they are very loud and they are sung by thousands at the same

time. The messages are aggressive too, in favor of Tibet’s independence and against the

dominant and powerful rule of the Chinese government. The chants are sung the entire

time I am in the protest, repeating all over again, and again, and again. There isn’t much

variation in the tone and rhythm, nor in the expressions they take in each individual voice of

the mass.

The heterogeneous mass gathered in the plaza and the unification achieved with chanting

rise several issues concerning the proxemics of social and public spaces, and where we can

account for the individual self in such instances. The plaza gives the individual diverse

spatial experiences; there is the public space shared by everybody, you can visualize the

entire plaza and get the idea of the concurrence this event is having; there is the social space

that one has with the people surrounding you, having a formal interaction with them; and

finally there is also personal space at stake just because there are so many people, making it

impossible not to bump each other, giving kinesthetic awareness. This proxemic approach

to the massive phenomenon explains the anxiety and over-stimulation that can produce this

event. There is a constant and instantaneous overlapping of public, social and personal

spaces; forcing the individual to adjust to the different situations she or he is exposed to.

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The experience of stressing simultaneity is pacified with the chanting, tranquilizing the

individual. The unified message sung over and over again by hundreds of people seems to

be a repeating mantra that not only integrates the mass but also blends the individual self

with the collectivity. The sonorous experience and the participation of everybody present,

forms a vibrating dialogue that synchronizes the multiple subjectivities. From this stems the

idea that social life is glued together thanks to its corporeal and more physical aspects. This

leads to the development of what Sklar calls “kinesthetic empathy” which consists in “the

capacity to participate with another’s movement or another’s sensory experience of

movement“[ii]. Social interaction then has a physical basis in corporeality. This contributes

to a better understanding of how the masses are able to coordinate themselves, how they

become a consolidated being and have a unique identity.

The public space is transformed into a space of intimate immersion, where the boundaries

of the body along with the self are attenuated, into what the chanting is evoking. The

individual is colonized by the mass and by the other bodies that surround him; the territory

of the self and its boundaries[iii] are no longer determined by the body or the personal

subjectivity, but rather by the involving mass and its intersubjectivity. The preoccupations

present before, the anxieties generated by the multiplicity, heterogeneity and simultaneous

experience, are now gone. The individual is now living as a collectivity, the personal self is

transmuted into the entire group; this can be reversed when the individual reflects upon his

condition as a colonized body, externalizing his experience. It is not an ideal model of

integration but rather a constant back and forth between the personal experience and the

public collectivity.

The Buddhist Monk:

Powerful, Energetic and Expressive Body

The body has the ability to talk, sing and even scream as a form of expressing itself. It is a

sonorous body. In the protest, I am well aware of the position the human body takes when

yelling and singing out loud protest and resistance chants. I observe a Buddhist monk who

stands in the middle of the mass chanting vigorously and yelling at the top of his lungs.

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He is a young Asian looking man about 5′3. His head is shaved. He is dressed up with his

burgundy robes, sport sneakers and a Tibetan flag used as a cape. When he sings the

protesting chants his face turns all red and his facial muscles get tightened. His forehead is

all wrinkly and sweaty, eyebrows are tense, he frowns, his eyes are wide open, his gaze is also

fixed in a distant point that is above the eyes of the mass (sometimes looking at the sky), his

expression shows overall a mixture of anger and suffering. His mouth is wide open when the

words come out of it. You are able to see his teeth, tongue and palette. His whole body

moves along with the chants, bouncing lightly up and down in tense motion. His fist is held

up high moving it firmly above his head as high up as he can reach. He moves it

rhythmically with the beat of the song; the tempo of the chanting seems to be marked by

the movement of the fist, fixing an overall pattern of the pitch, tone and beat of the songs.

His chest is wide and along with his fist he moves himself upward. The rest of his body

follows inertly. It appears as if it is his upper body the leading source of this sonorous

energy. There is an overall commonality, a sharing of the same experience that bonds all the

participants together. Through the chanting and the sound it is possible to appreciate the

exteriorization of a private drive that is shared with the rest of the crowd.

The observation of the monk reassures my idea of the chanting in the protest as a practice

that involves the body and its movements; intimately related to the person’s physicality due

to the corporeality needed for participation. What I will analyze is the monk’s body as a

source of knowledge and energy, its role in forming emotions and feelings through

expressions and also how sound may contribute in this particular context of the protest.

The Buddhist monk is part of the protest, I observe his behavior, how he shouts and moves,

engaging himself in the phenomenon through his body. The practice of chanting and the

experience he is having can be called “embodied knowledge“, that deals mainly with

knowledge acquired through body practices that are internalized by the subject as a habit.

When the monk’s body is actively participating, he is empowering himself with an energy

that is coming from within. This relates to Nietzsche’s ideas of the human body and its will

to power. For him, knowledge and power are the results of the body’s activity[iv]. The body

can be seen as a potentially diverse set of energies[v], this energy is translated into

movement that implies “an agent or motion-empowering force of some sort or other“[vi].

Large masses of bodies, and of bodies moving are a crucial aspect for the success of political

protests; they originate the understanding of the cause of the protest and also the power and

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energy to fight for it. Chanting is vital for this in many ways: as a source of information of

what is going on, as a generator of collective energy and as a spontaneous form of

contestation and attack in the context of the protest[vii].

The gestures, expressions and movements the Buddhist monk makes, are of great

importance too. Not only are they the source of energy and power the protest needs, but

also what they mean to him and to the people that surround him. According to Ekman[viii],

every facial expression is based in an emotion. His tight body, his frowned expression, his

aggressive gestures (the fist for example) reflect an image of anger and suffering. The facial

expression, body posture, the movements; all produce and reproduce the mental state

needed for the occasion. They vary from concern and sympathy, to anger and impotence.

Likewise, the mental state also exteriorizes and takes a corporeal state[ix]. The relationship

between sound, expression and emotion cannot be stated as a causal one. I would think that

there is no universal sequence of what comes first, or which one is the triggering factor. The

three of them are interrelated in such a way that they affect each other mutually. What is

clear though, is that sound is able to magnify expression and exteriorize emotion.

Somatic Participation:

Emotional Intersubjectivity

In order to understand what is going on, I immersed myself in the protest, not only as an

observer but as a participant too. I start chanting, singing along and repeating the phrases

against the injustice against Tibet. At first I am shy, my volume is not very loud, and I am

hesitant about what it is I am saying.

As I continue chanting my voice starts getting louder in crescendo, and before I can notice,

my whole body is involved in the act of yelling. I can feel a weird intensity, a strong

vibration in my breastbone with every word that comes out of my mouth. My chest and

throat expand and give space for the words to generate and come out as loud chants. My

mouth, head, ears and nose are the container of a resonance voice that is coming from me. I

tighten my facial muscles, opening my mouth very wide as a consequence. I am projecting

an energetic body vibe that is coming right from me. The repeating of the chants I saw as

mechanic, unconscious and without motive before, turn out as a mantra instead. It is a way

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of surpassing the superfluous immediacy, and creating an empowering energy that I share

with the rest of the protesters. It is a transcendent and ecstatic moment, and I feel as

though I am transmuted in the movement as a whole.

When chanting “Free Tibet Now“, I can hear that I am not chanting alone, the people around

me are also engaged in the chanting. I hear what they sing, following along what they are

saying. A dialogue is formed between me and the crowd, synchronized into one loud

message that is able to silence constant noise public spaces have of simultaneous

conversations; the bodies together, the movement and the shouting collaborate with the

constitution of this integral whole.

I get fully aware of the situation that surrounds me and it is overwhelming: all these people

united to fight for freedom and justice. On other hand I feel as though I cannot retain all

the energy I have generated, an adrenalinized sensation that drives me to action, to violent

movements and endless agitation.

I began as an observer of the protest, but I gradually immersed myself in it achieving full

participation. I got more and more involved in the protest, through my body and the

chanting. I was able to fully participate in the demonstration, I embodied the cause that was

fought and the emotions that were collectively shared against the Chinese government.

The experience I had when I chanted, and my participation in the protests leads me to

insightful theoretical ideas that position sound, in the context of this phenomenon, as an

important element in the constitution of a unified collectivity. This is due to its ability to

compromise the human body in such an intensive way, that it commits individuals to

ulterior causes somatically and not intellectually.

As I described before, the body changes drastically, mutating itself to enable sonorous

actions like the chanting. All the openings, widening, tightening, frowning and moves done

are needed in the act of yelling. The body allows and facilitates the chanting, with the open

mouth, the lifting of the chest; and ultimately is affected by it too; the feeling of vibrations,

the rhythmical movements. With the chanting, the body (my body) creates a particular way

of understanding the present, and like Sklar states “embodied experience, and movement in

particular, provide our most fundamental grounds of knowing and conceptualizing the

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world“[x]. This point ratifies the ideas discussed before about the body as a source of

knowledge and power.

Also, the body is a crucial element to integrate the individual with the crowd. It enables the

dialogue between these two orders of bodies, the sound in this process acts like a medium,

the binding energy that blends the one with the rest together. This integration occurs

somatically and not intellectually. It relies in the body as a dialogical disposition. It is

achieved through the experience of being part of the crowd, of participating in the protest,

and as Csordas puts it: “attending to and with one’s body in surroundings that include the

embodied presence of others“[xi].

Sound is a key element because it serves as a connection between the bodies and also as a

way of positioning the unified crowd. My own experience is a proof that I only felt part of

the protest when I began chanting[xii]. I believe that the ultimate and most engaging form

of participation is by chanting, by emitting sound, positioning oneself in the public realm of

experience as a voice. This voice colonizes the public space and expands the self.

The unification is a result of a somatic process and not intellectual, but this doesn’t means it

happens irrationally. There is actual meaning given to this experience, constituted

intersubjectively[xiii]. Csordas states that “in the lived world, we do not perceive others as

objects. Another person is perceived as another “myself”, tearing itself away from being simply

a phenomenon in my perceptual field, appropriating my phenomena and conferring on them

the dimension of intersubjective being, and so offering “the task of a true communication“[xiv].

This shows how the actual corporeal experience is vital for the formation of an

intersubjective collectivity. In the context of the protest, communication between the

individuals is done in numerous ways. Visual communication is one example with the

banners, flags and posters. The chanting is different from the visual communication

because it implies a more intense participation of the body: shouting engages more body

parts and requires more bodily movements than seeing and reading the banners.

The idea of an integrated crowd constituted somatically helps me understand the emotional

lapse I experienced when I was chanting in the protest, in a different way as analyzed

previously with the Buddhist monk. I attribute the emotional state I experienced not only to

my personal corporeal disposition and to the fact that I was yelling and compromising my

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body in such a way that it affected me psychically. I also think that the collectivity

influenced significantly how I felt during the process. The mixture of anger and impotence

were felt because of the overall situation that I was immersed in. My emotions were not an

internal state but rather a relationship between myself and the rest, Young explains that

“emotion is dispositional, a patterning of the relationship of the body to itself and its

world“[xv]. My point can be better understood when reading Merleau-Ponty’s account of

emotions as variations of the same experience and not the internal state I was talking about:

“I perceive the other as a piece of behavior, for example, I perceive the grief or the anger of the

other in his conduct, in his face or in his hands, without recourse to any “inner” experience of

suffering or anger, and because grief and anger are variations of belonging to the world,

undivided between the body and consciousness, and equally applicable to the other’s

conduct“[xvi]. The emotional atmosphere is created in the protesting group, emotions of

others are grasped somatically in this corporeal experience. The chanting is very important

in the constitution of this collective psychical state, allowing the integration of the diverse

mass in an intersubjective experience. It compromises the body in the production and

reproduction of this shared mental state.

Closing

Chanting can no longer be considered noisy and repetitive songs yelled by angry people

gathered together. It is a corporeal experience that compromises the body intensely. It

tightens, stresses, moves, provokes, stimulates, energizes, empowers and enlarges the

understanding of the individual in a non-intellectual way. Sound enables somatic

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communication and synchronization between the participants’ bodies, creating an

emotional intersubjectivity that ultimately integrates the multiple individuals into a unified

collectivity.

These ideas shift the focus of discussion to highlighting of chanting as a political action.

More than the contents of the songs, this body practice can be conceived as a political

instrument. It has the capacity to unite the dispersed, coordinate large groups of people,

engage individuals in ulterior and collective causes, move personal psychic toward altruistic

motives, amongst many other things. Political action and political movements need all of

these things to get things going on and to achieve their purposes.

Political discourse, theory and policies could shift their attention to the human body as a

source of motivation for political action. Using it strategically to invoke more participation

and commitment from the citizens; or seeing it the other way round, censor it, restrain it

and oppress it to gain the contrary. There is a lot of literature that problematizes this,

Foucault being one of its main upholders. He states that the body is an inert and resistant

matter that serves as a site where political power plays its dominant role[xvii]. What I am

suggesting is that the body itself is a political actor, not a passive victim of the power

process. The sonorous body is repositioned, serving as a crucial element in the constitution

of political actors and movements.

Notes

[i] Csordas, T. “Somatic Modes of Attention” in Cultural Anthropology 8:2, Pp. 135-156

[ii] Sklar, D. “Can Bodylore be Brought to its Senses?” in Journal of American Folklore

(1994). Pp. 9-22. P. 15

[iii] Goffman, E. “Territories of the Self” in Relations in Public. New York (1972). Pp. 28-61

[iv] Grosz, E. “Volatile Bodies: toward a corporeal feminism”. Indiana University Press

(1994). P. 123.

[v] Ibid.

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[vi] Sheets-Johnstone, M. “Consciousness: An Aristotelian Account” in The Primacy of

Movement. Amsterdam: John Benjamins (1999). P. 112.

[vii] I am aware of the existence of protests that have silence as a way to make a statement.

In this instance I consider silence not as the absence of sound but to be included in the

spectrum of sonorous phenomena.

[viii] Ekman, P. “An Argument for Basic Emotions” in Cognition and Emotion 6: 3/4 (1992).

Pp. 169-200

[ix] In this instance, I want to clarify that I do not conceive emotion and expression in the

Cartesian dichotomy of res cogitans and res extensa respectively. I think of them in a more

phenomenological approach as simultaneous when being-in-the-world.

[x] Sklar, D. “Can Bodylore be Brought to its Senses?” in Journal of American Folklore

(1994). Pp. 9-22. P. 9

[xi] Csordas, T. “Somatic Modes of Attention” in Cultural Anthropology 8:2, Pp. 135-156. P.

138

[xii] There are multiple ways of participating in a protest, the mere presence is the most

simple way to do it, also visuality and tactile (too many bodies grouped together). What I

discuss in this paper is why chanting is such a special way of participating

[xiii] Csordas, T. “Somatic Modes of Attention” in Cultural Anthropology 8:2, Pp. 135-156. P.

141

[xiv] Csordas, T. ”Somatic Modes of Attention” in Cultural Anthropology 8:2, Pp. 135-156. P.

149

[xv] Young, K. “The Memory of the Flesh: The Family Body in Somatic Psychology” in Body

and Society 8:3. Pp. 25-47. P. 36

[xvi] Csordas, T. “Somatic Modes of Attention” in Cultural Anthropology 8:2, Pp. 135-156. P.

151

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[xvii] Grosz, E. “Volatile Bodies: toward a corporeal feminism”. Indiana University Press

(1994).

Bibliography

Csordas, T. “Somatic Modes of Attention” in Cultural Anthropology 8:2, Pp. 135-156

Ekman, P. “An Argument for Basic Emotions” in Cognition and Emotion 6: 3/4 (1992).

Pp. 169-200

Goffman, E. “Territories of the Self” in Relations in Public. New York (1972). Pp. 28-61

Grosz, E. “Volatile Bodies: toward a corporeal feminism”. Indiana University Press

(1994).

Sheets-Johnstone, M. “Consciousness: An Aristotelian Account” in The Primacy of

Movement. Amsterdam: John Benjamins (1999).

Sklar, D. “Can Bodylore be Brought to its Senses?” in Journal of American Folklore

(1994). Pp. 9-22.

Young, K. “The Memory of the Flesh: The Family Body in Somatic Psychology” in

Body and Society 8:3. Pp. 25-47.