Assemblage Theory Research Articles

Urban restructuring and the reproduction of spaces of violence in Belfast

ABSTRACT This paper maps the distribution of post-conflict violence in Belfast and how it has restructured socially, economically and spatially. An end to hostilities and stable transition produces and is produced by a more complex set of distinctly urban assemblages, actors, resources and places. Bringing the ideas of ‘ordering’ into relation with assemblage theory, the paper suggests that explanations for the survival, volume, type and distribution of violence cannot be understood within exclusively ethnonational frames, identarian politics or military logics. In Belfast, the data reveal a more variegated map of peace and consumption; inner-city alienation and the intensification of division; as well as the emergence of new geographies of displaced violence. The paper concludes by emphasising the need to understand how urban processes and competing ethnic orders create highly differentiated spaces that explain the resilience of violence after hostilities have formally closed.

The customer is always right? Flags of convenience and the assembling of maritime affairs

The concept of ‘flag of convenience’ is ubiquitous in literature on maritime governance. First popularised by the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), it has served as a touchstone concept in maritime policy discourse, and as a metaphor for the interaction between state and corporate actors in both maritime affairs and the globalised economy more broadly. This article argues, however, that the conceptions of public and private as ontologically separate that underpin existing literature on maritime governance have obscured notable shifts in the practices of flags of convenience in recent decades. More specifically (and drawing on assemblage theory), it argues that while flags of convenience have been framed exclusively as entities that allow shipping interests to escape regulatory control, certain open registers have been re-constituted as hubs of knowledge and materiality that ease and accelerate commercial circulation in a variety of ways. The article concludes by drawing attention to the volatility of the politics and practices of flag statehood at large; additionally, it highlights the insights that can be yielded for International Relations by the examination of maritime governance using novel theoretical tools.

The digital turn of marine planning: a global analysis of ocean geoportals

ABSTRACT Recent research highlighted the use and role played by digital technologies supporting marine spatial planning (MSP), especially geoportals. This research seldom considers to study an overview of the role of digital technologies and examines the digitalization of marine governance in planning. Employing a critical cartography framework and assemblage theory, we elaborate on the use of geoportal and public involvement in the digital turn of MSP. We show how the digital turn in marine planning is taking place at different levels depending on: the functionalities present on geoportals, the political support for MSP implementation, the regions of the world, and the level of plan development. According to the three dimensions of digital (marine) governance (Kloppenburg et al., 2022), we reveal that the role of geoportal in MSP is a part of the first dimension by seeing and knowing, sometimes the second dimension by self-engagement and in the most advanced forms of geoportal part of the third dimension by leading actions and interventions. In general, we find that the geoportal is more of a facade than a tool for doing MSP. The digital turn in marine planning is real but does not yet allow the public to be a real stakeholder in the process.

Lessons from enterprise systems competency centers in adopting digital transformation initiatives: An assemblage approach

Firms are increasingly adopting digital transformation as a strategic priority. However, the path to successful transformation remains uncertain for many organizations. This paper examines the establishment and evolution of competency centers in two case study organizations, historically used in enterprise systems, in addressing the complexity and challenges of digital transformation. The interactions within these competency centers are analyzed through assemblage theory to understand the emergent relations between heterogeneous parts (technology, people, and organization) and the dynamic processes of new configurations. The insights from this research show the critical role of the competency center in any enterprise system's success and how it could continue playing a central role in future digital transformation initiatives. By providing a new lens to examine these issues, the assemblage theory provided a new theoretical perspective to the IS field and a new alternative empirical setting to the organizational literature.

Assembling places, technologies and young people – becoming rural youth with vehicles and digital technologies in Finland

ABSTRACT In this article, we explore the meanings of different technologies, especially vehicles and digital technologies, in the lives of young rural people. This article combines two different qualitative longitudinal data collections from rural areas of Finland. We employ a new materialist framework, especially the Deleuzo-Guattarian assemblage theory and the theoretical concept of becoming. We ask how rural places, youth, and technologies assemble in everyday life. We argue that rural youth becomings assemble not only with traditional technologies, such as mopeds, snowmobiles, and cars, but also with digital technologies, the internet, and social media. In this article, we suggest that rural youth research would benefit from theoretical and methodological reiterations of different rural materialities and human and non-human fluxes.

Policy Mobilities, Infrastructures, and Nonhuman Political Agency

Policy mobilities research has explored how policies—particularly urban development policies—spread among sites around the world, mutate along the way, and take hold in distinct contexts. Within the policy mobilities literature, there is particular attention to circulatory infrastructures, which facilitate encounters, learning, and exchange of knowledge that support the (re)production and movement of policies and “best practices.” Policy mobilities scholarship thus understands policy implementation as emerging from relational assemblages of myriad actors and social processes. Drawing on assemblage theory, this work has been attentive to nonhuman objects and infrastructures, nonetheless it has given little attention to nonhuman life. This article draws on more-than-human geographies, particularly emerging work on nonhuman life and infrastructures, to incorporate nonhuman actors into an understanding of policy mobilization. We present a case study of suburban wildlife management programs in Massachusetts and discuss how human–nonhuman relationships undergird policy development, transfer, and change. Drawing insights from municipal surveys, in-depth interviews, and document analysis, we argue that nonhumans are active in the production of policy assemblages and the mobility of environmental policies. Deer, in particular, are lively actors entangled in the circulation of policies designed to manage social-ecological dynamics and processes that also include ticks, forests, bacteria, and many other nonhuman agents. Through this intervention to situate nonhuman life in policy mobilities, we highlight the political agency of nonhuman actors, the materialities of policy mobilization, and the role of nonhumans in shaping relational networks.

GÖZETİM ASAMBLAJI: BUGÜNÜN DİSTOPYASI OLARAK DAVE EGGERS’ IN THE CIRCLE ADLI ROMANI ÜZERİNE ELEŞTİREL BİR OKUMA

Surveillance studies have gained momentum in today’s societies. These studies have put forward various theorems on surveillance since the states and/or corporations’ purposes of monitoring people are nebulous and open to discussion. However, the dystopian aspect of surveillance holds a common ground in most of these studies. No doubt, they have a fair share in their discussion since the growing fear of surveillance societies deeply instilled in the worlds of the futuristic-dystopian fiction has become a fact of our present world. That is, surveillance society has become today’s dystopia. Unlike the Foucaldian panopticon, surveillance in today’s society is relatively more complex and decentralized. This kind of surveillance is, what Haggerty and Ericson call, “the surveillant assemblage”. Dave Eggers’ The Circle is perhaps one of the best examples that portray it blatantly. As it shows us the complexities of the surveillant assemblage, it portrays its role to destroy individual zone by making them the willing agents to expose themselves to full transparency. This will eventually lead to the demise of the individual. With this purpose in mind, this research article examines Dave Eggers’s The Circle as today’s dystopia by giving utmost consideration to Haggerty and Ericson’s theory of surveillant assemblage and its discontents.

Customer experience in AI-enabled products: Scale development and validation

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an enabling technology that can be integrated into products to provide emerging capabilities and craft novel customer experience (CX); many companies have widely adopted AI-enabled products to provide customers with service interactions. However, meager researchers have studied CX in AI-enabled products. Utilizing qualitative and quantitative methods, this study developed a scale of CX in AI-enabled products using Churchill's (1979) scale development framework. The scale underwent several stages of development including item generation, scale purification, scale validation, cross-testing, and nomological validity testing. Finally, five dimensions were identified to represent CX in AI-enabled products, such as data capture experience, classification experience, delegation experience, social experience, and anthropomorphic experience. Based on assemblage theory, the study develops the scale from the perspective of integrating human-centric and object-oriented anthropomorphic metaphors. Establishment of this scale extends traditional CX research, expands emerging CX research, and presents the first operationalized definition of the CX in AI-enabled products. The development of this scale provides a framework for marketers to enhance the CX in emerging consumer environments.

Information and communications technology access for people in prison: strategies to maximise the benefits and minimise the harms of communication with families and program workers

ABSTRACT COVID-19 lockdowns accelerated the take up of video calls and other digital communication between people in prison and the outside world. This has altered relationships with families and practice within rehabilitative and reintegration services. Little work has discussed the significance of these changes or articulated a normative agenda for shaping changes in future. This article aims to identify strategies that might help reintegration services and justice system agencies maximise the benefits and minimise the harms from information communication technology (ICT) use between people in prison and their families and services. Drawing from empirical literature, practical insights from service delivery and theoretical insights from assemblage theory and carceral geography, this article proposes three strategies: design spatial, scheduling and security measures to minimise stigma and disruption; actively support ICT users to equitably access the potential of ICT systems; and develop program practices in parallel with the evolutions of the technology they employ. Each of these strategies is set out with sub-components and suggestions for further research.

In the Name of Sovereignty

Abstract In a post-9/11 world, the figure of the female suicide bomber has emerged as a contentious figure in global discourse. Through the character of Saraswathi, Nayomi Munaweera’s novel Island of a Thousand Mirrors (2012) foregrounds how the construction of this subaltern figure hinges on her susceptibility to rape. This relationship between rape and suicide bombing is deployed differently by the counterterrorist institutions that target her and the ethnonationalist movements that recruit her to make her speak as both victim and agent while silencing her. This article thus argues that we need to move away from the framework of victimhood and agency, which assumes subjectivity without accounting for how the body of the female subaltern is excluded from inhabiting subjecthood as a construct of bounded national sovereignty. Using Jasbir Puar’s theory of queer assemblage, the author explains how Saraswathi’s suicide bomber in ITM is constructed as a figure of antinormative subjectivity through a discourse of U.S. exceptionalism in opposition to a normative U.S. national identity and sovereignty. The author builds on Puar’s insights, which draw on affect theory, to rethink Saraswathi’s violent protest as a moment that destabilizes these normative identities and their related social scripts. The author further posits alternative visions of antinormative subjectivity in the novel that allow for Saraswathi’s survival after her rape.

Corpus-Based Discourse Analysis of a Reddit Community of Users of Crystal Methamphetamine: Mixed Methods Study.

Methamphetamine is a highly addictive stimulant that affects the central nervous system. Crystal methamphetamine is a form of the drug resembling glass fragments or shiny bluish-white rocks that can be taken through smoking, swallowing, snorting, or injecting the powder once it has been dissolved in water or alcohol. The objective of this study is to examine how identities are socially (discursively) constructed by people who use methamphetamine within a subreddit for people who regularly use crystal meth. Using a mixed methods approach, we analyzed 1000 threads (318,422 words) from a subreddit for regular crystal meth users. The qualitative component of the analysis used concordancing and corpus-based discourse analysis to identify discursive themes informed by assemblage theory. The quantitative portion of the analysis used corpus linguistic techniques including keyword analysis to identify words occurring with statistically marked frequency in the corpus and collocation analysis to analyze their discursive context. Our findings reveal that the subreddit contributors use a rich and varied lexicon to describe crystal meth and other substances, ranging from a neuroscientific register (eg, methamphetamine and dopamine) to informal vernacular (eg, meth, dope, and fent) and commercial appellations (eg, Adderall and Seroquel). They also use linguistic resources to construct symbolic boundaries between different types of methamphetamine users, differentiating between the esteemed category of "functional addicts" and relegating others to the stigmatized category of "tweakers." In addition, contributors contest the dominant view that methamphetamine use inevitably leads to psychosis, arguing instead for a more nuanced understanding that considers the interplay of factors such as sleep deprivation, poor nutrition, and neglected hygiene. The subreddit contributors' discourse offers a "set and setting" perspective, which provides a fresh viewpoint on drug-induced psychosis and can guide future harm reduction strategies and research. In contrast to this view, many previous studies overlook the real-world complexities of methamphetamine use, perhaps due to the use of controlled experimental settings. Actual drug use, intoxication, and addiction are complex, multifaceted, and elusive phenomena that defy straightforward characterization.

Violent Entanglements: Intimate Partner Violence in LGBTIQ + People’s Relationships

PurposeThis article analyzes violence and abuse in LGBTIQ + people’s former relationships. Combining assemblage theory with intersectionality, it rethinks queer and feminist understandings by analyzing intimate partner violence as assemblages. This offers a nuanced approach that does not rely on simplistic causal models.MethodsThe article draws on a dataset of interviews with separated LGBTIQ + people, 30 in Finland and 28 in England. It focuses on 13 interviewees who gave accounts of mental, physical, and sexual violence within previous relationships. Following a Deleuze-inspired rhizomatic methodology, the analysis “enters in the middle” of complex abusive assemblages and identifies the most central elements and affective entanglements that helped to maintain and/or diminish the abuse.ResultsAssemblages that engender and maintain abuse are complex and multiple. Nevertheless, they are not random: the rhizomatic workings of heteronormativity, the social status of LGBTIQ + relationships, and gender-related elements entangle in assemblages that amplify the effects of abuse and constrain participants’ bodies.ConclusionsAbuse in LGBTIQ + people’s relationships can be understood through the posthuman theoretical idea of distributed agency: abuse gains force in and through its entanglements with other elements within an assemblage. This does not absolve abusive persons of responsibility for their actions. Rather, it reveals that the efficacy of agency depends on the interactive forces and elements within an assemblage. Abuse and violence often accumulate, as the exposure of bodies to injurious conditions produces affective relations that can become patterned in LGBTIQ + people’s lives.

Plasmatic thinking and tourism: Plasmatic modernity

This paper builds on assemblage theory to propose a new theoretical understanding of modernity. While the conceptual framing is meant for modernity at large, this paper locates its conceptual discussion in the context of tourism in Macao and illustrates how plasmatic thinking, the new conceptual framework proposed, advances analysis of aspiration, exploitation and freedom of its tour guides. Plasmatic thinking helps examinations of tourism labour to engage with the fragile and fluid nature of the sociomaterial environments. Instead of structures, networks or fluidities, plasmatic thinking sees the world as composed of ‘plasmas’ – ‘charged’ sociomaterial clustering of objects, humans and the processes between them. Plasmas are a form of charged matter falling outside solid, liquid and gaseous states and metaphorises the fragility and impermanence of sociomaterial situations for plasmas disintegrates when discharged. The attention to charges and fragility of plasmas helps describes both pandemic levels shocks and everyday disruptions. Through a plasmatic analysis of the falling apart and coming together of such plasmas and how they bring about significant consequences to Macao's tourism, I showcase plasmatic thinking as a theoretical approach which vividly uncovers the fragility and fluidity of modernity and the workings of power in our sociomaterial worlds.

Assemblage urbanism: the role of heritage in urban placemaking

PurposeThe paper explores the potential value of urban assemblage theory as a conceptual framework for understanding the role heritage has in social sustainable urban placemaking. The authors conceptualise urban placemaking as a dynamic and complex social assemblage. Heritage is one of the many dimensions of such a complex and dynamic urban assembly. Based on the approach to urban assemblage theory, the authors aim to uncover how postindustrial city-making unfolds. When approaching the case studies, the authors ask the following: Whose city for which citizens are visible through the selected case studies? How is social sustainability achieved through heritage in urban placemaking?Design/methodology/approachThe main research material is derived from theoretical literature and the testing of an assemblage methodological approach through three Norwegian urban regeneration case studies where heritage partake in urban placemaking. The three case studies are the Tukthus wall (what is left of an 19th century old prison), the Vulkan neighbourhood (an 19th century industrial working area) and Sørengkaia (an 19th century industrial harbour area) in Oslo, Norway. The three case studies are representing urban regeneration projects which are common worldwide, and not at least in a European context.FindingsThe paper reveals the dynamic factors and processes at play in urban placemaking, which has its own distinct character by the uses of heritage in each of the case study areas. Placemaking could produce “closed” systems which are stable in accordance with its original functions, or they could be “open” systems affected by the various drivers of change. The paper shows how these forces are depending on two sets of binary forces at play in urban placemaking: forces of “assemblages” co-creating a place versus destabilising forces of “disassembly” which is redefining the place as a process affected by reassembled placemaking.Research limitations/implicationsFor research, the authors focus on the implications this paper has for the field of urban heritage studies as it provides a useful framework to capture the dynamic complexity of urban heritage areas.Practical implicationsFor practice, the authors state that the paper can provide a useful platform for dialogue and critical thinking on strategies being planned.Social implicationsFor society, the paper promotes the significance in terms of fostering an inclusive way of thinking and planning for urban heritage futures.Originality/valueThe paper outlines dynamics of urban regeneration through heritage which are significant for understanding urban transformation as value for offering practical solutions to social problems in urban planning. The assemblage methodological approach (1) makes awareness of the dynamic processes at play in urban placemaking and makes the ground for mapping issue at stake in urban placemaking; (2) becomes a source for modelling urban regeneration through heritage by defining a conceptual framework of dynamic interactions in urban placemaking; and (3) defines a critically reflexive tool for evaluating good versus bad (heritage-led) urban development projects.

The urban materialities of disused quarries in Cape Town

ABSTRACT Quarried stone has a multitude of uses in the built environment. Often old, abandoned quarries near cities have become enveloped by urban expansion. This paper investigates what becomes of disused quarries, specifically in Cape Town, South Africa. The study is scaffolded by the theoretical underpinnings of urban materiality which, in turn, draws from assemblage theory. It is posited that the urban materialities of quarries, as one-time sites of material extraction, do not cease with closure. The infill, rehabilitation and repurposing of quarries for other uses result in continued contributions of quarries to the urbanscape, in addition to being historical sites of meaning and memory. The location of 77 quarries in Cape Town were mapped using data from various sources. Seventy-one quarries are in a post-extractive state. Thirty-five per cent of disused quarries have not been rehabilitated or altered by human activity after closure. However, they are sites of non-human use. Sixty-five per cent of the post-extractive quarries are sites for housing, commercial and educational activities; for recreational activities; have been infilled; or they store water for agricultural purposes. The reuse of quarries speaks to the creation of new urban materialities and assemblages by humans and non-humans which are worthy of further investigation.

Situated socio-material assemblages: assemmethodology in the making

Abstract This article proposes the concept of assemmethodology, which combines assemblage theory and ethnomethodology. Relating to the ongoing studies in sociomateriality, this article advances our understanding of the details of social conduct and the consequentiality of materials. By explicating the role of the situation and its processual becoming, which is inherent in ethnomethodology, and by replacing the unit of analysis from the individual to the assemblage made up of heterogenous elements, this article contributes to communication research that seeks to advance our understanding of the ways in which humans are entangled with the material world. As a perspicuous case for the study of assemmethodology, this article explores situations in which screens are assembled with humans and other materials in social situations. The article uses these examples to highlight the necessity of maintaining a focus on the situated emergence of socio-material orders as a property of the activity.

Preparing for War: wargaming the NATO-Russia confrontation in the Baltics

ABSTRACT The recent literature has inquired how media, official discourses, popular culture, or even sports and toys, can shape political imaginary into thinking that military intervention is the only relevant course of action. In this endeavour, the role of wargaming in justifying further militarisation remains largely understudied. By building upon the RAND Baltic 2014–2015 wargame and the subsequent NATO decision to deploy troops in the Baltics and Poland, I propose that certain wargames can legitimise the use of force in three ways: by reflecting the security community’s concerns in the storyline of the game, by designing the game in such a manner that preparation for war becomes the only well-founded means of tackling the issues posed by the game, and by enhancing its circulation in the defence field, notably by presenting the wargame as having the same level of credibility as science. Drawing upon assemblage theory, I propose that wargaming encompasses more than the individual experiences of its players. It encompasses the extensive sociotechnical assemblage of practices, technologies, networks of actors, and resulting emergent properties that together can amplify the conditions of possibility favourable to military deployment.

The Role of International Law in the Maritime Migration Security Assemblage: EU Activity in the Lampedusa Triangle

This paper concerns itself with the configuration of security at sea, arguing that its implementation is not solely within the security actor’s control. Rather, maritime security configurations are constructed as a result of intended and unintended actions and implications, melding security and insecurity together as a singular sphere of activity. Narrowing in on the specific case of migration governance, this paper investigates the role of international legal obligations and limitations for security actors at sea in understanding the operationalisation of maritime migration security. Questions of the construction of maritime security configurations are considered with reference to boarding and searching of vessels, search and rescue (SAR) and access to territorial waters, perceived through the practice based assemblage approach. It is proposed that assemblage theory is suited to accessing complex relationships between security and international law. Attending to Central Mediterranean migration governance, this paper reflects a reading of international law that resulted in a stagnation of security on the high seas. The convictions of this paper are three-fold. Firstly and primarily, the implementation of a maritime security initiative is not solely within the control of the securitising actor. Secondly, maritime security configurations are malleable, and shaped by unplanned elements, including international legal obligations and instruments. Finally, maritime security is an assemblage, constructed as a result of intentional and unintentional independent elements which form relationships and result in a unique security configuration. The findings demonstrate that international law forms an important aspect of maritime migration security configurations or assemblages, and significantly shapes such operations.

Tussling with seascape character assessment and assemblage theories

ABSTRACT Assemblage theory, based on the work of Manuel DeLanda, has gained in popularity amongst social scientists. However, a very different version of the theory has now been presented by Ian Buchanan, who claims that his version has much stronger roots in the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari, from which the concept originates. A review of these two reveals the deep differences between them and their incompatibility, especially given the different ontologies upon which they are based. They can broadly be described respectively as systems-oriented and purpose-oriented approaches. These competing versions are explored further in the context of the practice of seascape character assessment. A twin analysis of a seascape character assessment exercise is carried out, which illustrates vividly the different understandings that each assemblage theory offers. However, this also suggests that each has the potential to help develop more progressive approaches to seascape practice. The choice of approach will depend on the aim of incorporating assemblage theory into this area of practice, whether to work within the rationale of, and enhance, existing assessment (DeLanda) or to interrogate the processes by which seascapes may serve particular purposes and then shape those processes (Buchanan).

Intermedialities as Sociopolitical Assemblages in Contemporary Art

This article is an introductory essay to the Special Issue “A Comparative Study of Media in Contemporary Visual Art”. It starts with a short overview of the terminological discussion about intermediality as a concept and its relationship with medialities with other prefixes—such as mixed, intra-, multi-, and transmedialities. So far, intermediality has been discussed less by art historians than by literary scholars. This introductory essay argues that critical analysis of intermediality in contemporary artworks may offer additional insights for investigation of the issues addressed in these artworks. The case studies in this Special Issue underscore this view. As a kind of kick-off, the second part of this essay includes a short case study that focuses on two artworks by the Lebanese artist Rabih Mroué in order to provide insight into how intermedial relations can act as metaphors for the sociopolitical relations addressed in his artworks. Applying philosopher Manuel DeLanda’s “assemblage theory”, philosopher Edward S. Casey’s concept of “absorptive mapping”, and anthropologist Tim Ingold’s view of living beings as consisting of a bundle of lines facilitates the highlighting of the sociopolitical aspects of intermediality in Mroué’s artworks.