Densities of Care

Abstract

Densities of care, weaving together public moods, physical forms, and deliberative actions, shape a critical synergy in the 2019–20 Anti-Extradition Bill (Anti-ELAB) movement. This essay unpacks urban density through a radical sense of ‘care’ - the solidarity ethics and actions that create, bond, and repair political crowds. Drawing on three forms of ‘densities of care’ – mobility, atmosphere, and sound – in the social movement, this essay offers a nuanced account of political crowds, challenging the traditional understandings of the crowd as a form of unruly density. By reticulating ‘density’ – the very physical quantifier – with ‘care’ – the affective engagement, the notion of ‘densities of care’ contributes to explicating the solidarity basis with an urban geographical understanding. In so doing, it reveals the ways that the seemingly dispersive, unorganized crowds in orchestration with the hyper-dense built environment that bolstering relational ethics for curing and navigating possibilities at every moment.