Assemblage (philosophy)

Last updated

Assemblage (from French : agencement, "a collection of things which have been gathered together or assembled") is a philosophical approach for studying the ontological diversity of agency, which means redistributing the capacity to act from an individual to a socio-material network of people, things, and narratives. [1] [2] Also known as assemblage theory [3] or assemblage thinking, [4] [1] this philosophical approach frames social complexity through fluidity, exchangeability, and their connectivity. The central thesis is that people do not act predominantly according to personal agency; rather, human action requires material interdependencies and a network of discursive devices distributed across legal, geographical, cultural, or economic infrastructures.

Contents

There are multiple philosophical approaches that use an assemblage perspective. One version is associated with Manuel DeLanda in work on assemblage theory. [3] Another is associated to the work of Bruno Latour and Michel Callon on Actor-network theory. [5] A third draws from Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. [6] A fourth from Michel Pêcheux's discourse analysis. The similarities among these versions include a relational view of social reality in which human action results from shifting interdependencies between material, narrative, social, and geographic elements. [1] The theories have in common an account for emergent qualities that result from associations between human and non-humans. In other words, an assemblage approach asserts that, within a body, the relationships of component parts are not stable and fixed; rather, they can be displaced and replaced within and among other bodies, thus approaching systems through relations of exteriority. [7]

Overview

The term assemblage, in a philosophical sense, originally stems from the French word agencement, whose meaning translates narrowly to English as "arrangement", "fitting, or "fixing". [8] Agencement asserts the inherent implication of the connection between specific concepts and that the arrangement of those concepts is what provides sense or meaning. Assemblage, on the other hand, can be more accurately described as the integration and connection of these concepts and that it is both the connections and the arrangements of those connections that provide context for assigned meanings.

John Phillips argued in 2006 that Deleuze and Guattari rarely used the term assemblage at all in a philosophical sense, and that through narrow, literal English translations, the terms became misleadingly perceived as analogous. The translation of agencement as assemblage can "give rise to connotations based on analogical impressions, which liberate elements of a vocabulary from the arguments that once helped form it." [8]

Deleuze and Guattari

In A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia , Deleuze and Guattari draw from dynamical systems theory, which explores the way material systems self-organize, and extend the theory to include social, linguistic, and philosophical systems in order to create assemblage theory. [9] In assemblage theory, assemblages (or relationships) are formed through the processes of coding, stratification, and territorialization. Any one philosophical context never operates in isolation. [8]

An assemblage is a constellation of singularities (ensemble de singularités), stratified into the symbolic law, polis, or era. [10] A constellation, like any assemblage, is made up of imaginative contingent articulations among myriad heterogeneous elements. [11] This process of ordering matter around a body is called coding. [9] According to Deleuze and Guattari, assemblages are coded by taking a particular form; they select, compose, and complete a territory. [11] In composing a territory, there exists the creation of hierarchical bodies in the process of stratification. [9] Drawing from the constellation metaphor, Deleuze and Guattari argue that the constellation includes some heavenly bodies but leaves out others; the included bodies being those in close proximity given the particular gathering and angle of view. [11] [ better source needed ] The example constellation thus defines the relationships with the bodies in and around it, and therefore demonstrates the social complexity of assemblage.

Territorialization is another process of assemblage theory, and is viewed as the ordering of the bodies that create the "assemblage". [9] Assemblages territorialize both forms of content and forms of expression. Forms of content, also known as material forms, include the assemblage of human and nonhuman bodies, actions, and reactions. Forms of expression include incorporeal enunciations, acts, and statements. [11] Within this ordering of the bodies, assemblages do not remain static; they are further characterized by processes of deterritorialization and reterritorialization. Deterritorialization occurs when articulations are disarticulated and disconnected through components "exiting" the assemblage; once again exemplifying the idea that these forms do not and cannot operate alone [11] Reterritorialization describes the process by which new components "enter" and new articulations are forged, thus constituting a new assemblage. [11] In this way, these axes of content/expressive and the processes of territorialization exist to demonstrate the complex nature of assemblages.

DeLanda

Manuel DeLanda detailed the concept of assemblage in his book A New Philosophy of Society (2006) where, like Deleuze and Guattari, he suggests that social bodies on all scales are best analyzed through their individual components. Like Deleuze and Guattari, DeLanda’s approach examines relations of exteriority, in which assemblage components are self-subsistent and retain autonomy outside of the assemblage in which they exist [12] DeLanda details Deleuze and Guattari's (1987) assemblage theory of how assemblage components are organized through the two axes of material/expressive and territorializing/deterritorializing. [12] DeLanda's additional contribution is to suggest that a third axis exists: of genetic/linguistic resources that also defines the interventions involved in the coding, decoding, and recoding of the assemblage. [12] Like Deleuze and Guattari, DeLanda suggests that the social does not lose its reality, nor its materiality, through its complexity. [7] In this way, assemblages are effective in their practicality; assemblages, though fluid, are nevertheless part of historically significant processes.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Félix Guattari</span> French psychoanalyst (1930–1992)

Pierre-Félix Guattari was a French psychoanalyst, political philosopher, semiotician, social activist, and screenwriter. He co-founded schizoanalysis with Gilles Deleuze, and ecosophy with Arne Næss, and is best known for his literary and philosophical collaborations with Deleuze, most notably Anti-Oedipus (1972) and A Thousand Plateaus (1980), the two volumes of their theoretical work Capitalism and Schizophrenia.

Schizoanalysis is a set of theories and techniques developed by philosopher Gilles Deleuze and psychoanalyst Félix Guattari, first expounded in their book Anti-Oedipus (1972) and continued in their follow-up work, A Thousand Plateaus (1980).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manuel DeLanda</span> Mexican-American writer, artist, and philosopher

Manuel DeLanda is a Mexican-American writer, artist and philosopher who has lived in New York since 1975. He is a lecturer in architecture at the Princeton University School of Architecture and the University of Pennsylvania School of Design, where he teaches courses on the philosophy of urban history and the dynamics of cities as historical actors with an emphasis on the importance of self-organization and material culture in the understanding of a city. DeLanda also teaches architectural theory as an adjunct professor of architecture and urban design at the Pratt Institute and serves as the Gilles Deleuze Chair and Professor of Philosophy at the European Graduate School. He holds a BFA from the School of Visual Arts (1979) and a PhD in media and communication from the European Graduate School (2010).

<i>A Thousand Plateaus</i> 1980 book by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari

A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia is a 1980 book by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and the French psychoanalyst Félix Guattari. It is the second and final volume of their collaborative work Capitalism and Schizophrenia. While the first volume, Anti-Oedipus (1972), was a critique of contemporary uses of psychoanalysis and Marxism, A Thousand Plateaus was developed as an experimental work of philosophy covering a far wider range of topics, serving as a "positive exercise" in what Deleuze and Guattari refer to as rhizomatic thought.

<i>Anti-Oedipus</i> 1972 nonfiction book by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari

Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia is a 1972 book by French authors Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, the former a philosopher and the latter a psychoanalyst. It is the first volume of their collaborative work Capitalism and Schizophrenia, the second being A Thousand Plateaus (1980).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brian Massumi</span> Canadian philosopher and social theorist

Brian Massumi is a Canadian philosopher and social theorist. Massumi's research spans the fields of art, architecture, cultural studies, political theory and philosophy. His work explores the intersection between power, perception, and creativity to develop an approach to thought and social action bridging the aesthetic and political domains. He is a retired professor in the Communications Department of the Université de Montréal.

In critical theory, deterritorialization is the process by which a social relation, called a territory, has its current organization and context altered, mutated or destroyed. The components then constitute a new territory, which is the process of reterritorialization.

Reterritorialization is the restructuring of a place or territory that has experienced deterritorialization. Deterritorialization is a term created by Deleuze and Guattari in their philosophical project Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1972–1980). They distinguished that relative deterritorialization is always accompanied by reterritorialization. It is the design of the new power. For example, when the Spanish conquered the Aztecs, and after the Spanish deterritorialized by eliminating the symbols of the Aztecs' beliefs and rituals, the Spanish then reterritorialized by putting up their own beliefs and rituals. This form of propaganda established their takeover of the land. Propaganda is an attempt to reterritorialize by influencing people's ideas through information distributed on a large scale. For example, during World War I, the U.S. put up posters everywhere to encourage young men to join the military and fight.

Affect is a concept, used in the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza and elaborated by Henri Bergson, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, that places emphasis on bodily or embodied experience. The word affect takes on a different meaning in psychology and other fields.

Minority is a philosophical concept developed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in their books Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature (1975), A Thousand Plateaus (1980), and elsewhere. In these texts, they criticize the concept of "majority". For Deleuze and Guattari, "becoming-minor(itarian)" is primarily an ethical action, one of the becomings one is affected by when avoiding "becoming-fascist". They argued further that the concept of a "people", when invoked by subordinate groups or those aligned with them, always refers to a minority, whatever its numerical power might be.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Body without organs</span> Concept in philosophy

The body without organs is a fuzzy concept used in the work of French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. The concept describes the unregulated potential of a body—not necessarily human— without organizational structures imposed on its constituent parts, operating freely. The term was first used by French writer Antonin Artaud in his 1947 play To Have Done With the Judgment of God, later adapted by Deleuze in his book The Logic of Sense, and ambiguously expanded upon by himself and Guattari in both volumes of their work Capitalism and Schizophrenia.

Desiring-production is a term coined by the French thinkers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in their book Anti-Oedipus (1972).

Plane of immanence is a founding concept in the metaphysics or ontology of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze.

A rhizome is a concept in post-structuralism describing a nonlinear network. It appears in the work of French theorists Deleuze and Guattari, who used the term in their book A Thousand Plateaus to refer to networks that establish "connections between semiotic chains, organizations of power, and circumstances relative to the arts, sciences and social struggles" with no apparent order or coherency. A rhizome is purely a network of multiplicities that are not arborescent with properties similar to lattices. Deleuze referred to it as extending from his concept of an "image of thought" that he had previously discussed in Difference and Repetition.

A line of flight or a line of escape is a concept developed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in their work Capitalism and Schizophrenia. It describes one out of three lines forming what Deleuze and Guattari call assemblages, and serves as a factor in an assemblage that ultimately allows it to change and adapt to said changes, which can be associated with new sociological, political and psychological factors. Translator Brian Massumi notes that in French, "Fuite covers not only the act of fleeing or eluding but also flowing, leaking, and disappearing into the distance. It has no relation to flying."

<i>A New Philosophy of Society</i> 2006 book by Manuel DeLanda

A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity is a 2006 book by the philosopher Manuel DeLanda. The book is an attempt to loosely define a new ontology for use by social theorists — one that challenges the existing paradigm of meaningful social analyses being possible only on the level of either individuals (micro-reductionism) or "society as a whole" (macro-reductionism). Instead, the book employs Gilles Deleuze's and Félix Guattari's theory of assemblages from A Thousand Plateaus (1980) to posit social entities on all scales that are best analysed through their components.

Assemblage may refer to:

Gilles Deleuze, a French philosopher, and Félix Guattari, a French psychoanalyst and political activist, wrote a number of works together.

Systems theory in anthropology is an interdisciplinary, non-representative, non-referential, and non-Cartesian approach that brings together natural and social sciences to understand society in its complexity. The basic idea of a system theory in social science is to solve the classical problem of duality; mind-body, subject-object, form-content, signifier-signified, and structure-agency. Systems theory suggests that instead of creating closed categories into binaries (subject-object), the system should stay open so as to allow free flow of process and interactions. In this way the binaries are dissolved.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Signified and signifier</span> Concepts in linguistics

In semiotics, signified and signifier are the two main components of a sign, where signified is what the sign represents or refers to, known as the "plane of content", and signifier which is the "plane of expression" or the observable aspects of the sign itself. The idea was first proposed in the work of Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, one of the two founders of semiotics.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Diaz Ruiz, Carlos A.; Penaloza, Lisa; Holmqvist, Jonas (2020-03-07). "Assembling tribes: An assemblage thinking approach to the dynamics of ephemerality within consumer tribes". European Journal of Marketing. 54 (5): 999–1024. doi:10.1108/EJM-08-2018-0565. ISSN   0309-0566. S2CID   216399732.
  2. ↑ McFarlane, Colin; Anderson, Ben (June 2011). "Thinking with assemblage: Thinking with assemblage". Area. 43 (2): 162–164. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4762.2011.01012.x.
  3. 1 2 De Landa, Manuel (2016). Assemblage theory. Edinburgh. ISBN   978-1-4744-1364-0. OCLC   964447319.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  4. ↑ Assembling consumption : researching actors, networks and markets. Robin Canniford, Domen Bajde. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon. 2016. ISBN   978-1-317-58963-1. OCLC   921887931.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
  5. ↑ Latour, Bruno (2005). Reassembling the social : an introduction to actor-network-theory. Oxford. ISBN   978-0-19-153126-2. OCLC   560570874.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  6. ↑ Deleuze, Gilles (1987). A thousand plateaus : capitalism and schizophrenia. Félix Guattari, Brian Massumi. Minneapolis, MN. ISBN   0-8166-1401-6. OCLC   16472336.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  7. 1 2 Wikis.la.utexas.edu,. (2016). Assemblage Theory | University of Texas Theory. Retrieved 1 March 2016, from "Assemblage Theory | Texas Theory". Archived from the original on 2016-03-14. Retrieved 2016-03-01.
  8. 1 2 3 Phillips, J. (2006). "Agencement/Assemblage". Theory, Culture & Society. 23 (2–3): 108–109. doi:10.1177/026327640602300219. S2CID   220894814.
  9. 1 2 3 4 Smith, D., & Protevi, J. (2008). Gilles Deleuze. plato.stanford.edu. Retrieved 1 March 2016, from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/deleuze/#ThoPla
  10. ↑ Deleuze, Gilles; Guattari, Félix (1987). "Treatise on Nomadology—The War Machine". A Thousand Plateaus. Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Translated by Massumi, Brian. University of Minnesota Press. p. 406. ISBN   978-1-85168-637-7. We will call an assemblage every constellation of singularities and traits deducted from the flow—selected, organized, stratified...to converge (consistency) artificially and naturally...constituting 'cultures,' or even 'ages.'
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Wise, J., & Slack, J. (2014). Culture and Technology. New York, NY: Lang, Peter New York.
  12. 1 2 3 Karaman, O (2008). "A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory And Social Complexity by Manuel DeLanda". Antipode. 40 (5): 935–937. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8330.2008.00646.x .
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.