Assemblage thinking and actor-network theory: conjunctions, disjunctions, cross-fertilisations

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Version: author
Serval ID
serval:BIB_8D1515590C7F
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Title
Assemblage thinking and actor-network theory: conjunctions, disjunctions, cross-fertilisations
Journal
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers
Author(s)
Müller M., Schurr C.
ISSN
1475-5661 (Online)
Publication state
Published
Issued date
2016
Volume
41
Number
3
Pages
217-229
Language
english
Abstract
This paper shows that assemblage thinking and actor-network theory (ANT) have much more to gain from each other than debate has so far conceded. Exploring the conjunctions and disjunctions between the two approaches, it proposes three cross-fertilisations that have implications for understanding three key processes in our socio-material world: stabilisation, change and affect. First, the conceptual vocabulary of ANT can enrich assemblage thinking with an explicitly spatial account of the ways in which assemblages are drawn together, reach across space and are stabilised. Second, each approach is better attuned to conceptualising a particular kind of change in socio-material relations: ANT describes change without rupture, or fluidity, whereas assemblage thinking describes change with rupture, or events. Third and last, assemblage thinking could fashion ANT with a greater sensitivity for the productive role of affect in bringing socio-material relations into being through the production of desire/wish (désir). We demonstrate the implications of these cross-fertilisations for empirical work through a case study of the global market for assisted reproduction.
Keywords
actor-network theory (ANT), affect, assemblage, Deleuze, desire, Latour
Open Access
Yes
Create date
07/09/2017 12:51
Last modification date
20/08/2019 15:51
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