This book is an exploration of how this remarkably efficient and familiar form of gathering operates, in different times and places, and how it comes to be recognised by those who experience or deploy it. * Throws the spotlight on the epistemological and ontological basis of coming together through formal meetings of different kinds * Demonstrates how meetings - socially and institutionally prescribed spaces for coming together - are important and ubiquitous organisational forms in various political, religious and economic settings * Shows how meetings feature prominently in classic anthropological accounts, and in more contemporary ethnography, particularly in relation to studies of documents, organizations, policy, development, politics, and science and technology