''A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity'' is a 2006 book by the philosopher

Manuel DeLanda Manuel DeLanda (born 1952) 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 ...

.Karaman, Ozar: "Book Review" in ''Antipode'', November 2008 The book is an attempt to loosely define a new

ontology In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophy, philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, Becoming (philosophy), becoming, and reality. Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into Category ...

for use by social theorists — one that challenges the existing

paradigm In science and philosophy, a paradigm () is a distinct set of concepts or thought patterns, including theories, research methods, postulates, and standards for what constitute legitimate contributions to a field. Etymology ''Paradigm'' comes f ...

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 Gilles Louis René Deleuze ( , ; 18 January 1925 – 4 November 1995) was a French philosopher who, from the early 1950s until his death in 1995, wrote on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volu ...

's and

Félix Guattari Pierre-Félix Guattari ( , ; 30 April 1930 – 29 August 1992) was a French psychoanalyst, political philosopher, semiotician, social activist, and screenwriter. He co-founded schizoanalysis with Gilles Deleuze, and ecosophy with Arne Næs ...

's theory of assemblages from ''

A Thousand Plateaus ''A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia'' (french: link=no, Mille plateaux) 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 collaborativ ...

'' (1980) to posit social entities on all scales (from sub-individual to transnational) that are best analysed through their components (themselves assemblages).

Main ideas

Components are characterized along two primary axes/dimensions: a material-expressive axis which defines the variable roles a component may play, and a territorializing- deterritorializing axis indicating processes in which a component is involved. These components are defined by relations of exteriority, that is, their "role" within a larger assemblage is not what defines them (this would be a relation of interiority). This means that a component is self-subsistent and may be "unplugged" from one assemblage and "plugged" into another without losing its identity. A third axis defines processes in which specialized expressive media (genetic/linguistic resources) intervene in "coding"/"decoding" the assemblage. According to DeLanda, following Deleuze's ideas of

difference and repetition ''Difference and Repetition'' (french: Différence et répétition, link=no) is a 1968 book by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. Originally published in France, it was translated into English by Paul Patton in 1994. ''Difference and Repetition ...

(what DeLanda calls "variable repetition"), assemblages necessarily exist in

heterogeneous Homogeneity and heterogeneity are concepts often used in the sciences and statistics relating to the uniformity of a substance or organism. A material or image that is homogeneous is uniform in composition or character (i.e. color, shape, siz ...

populations. The relationship between an assemblage and its components is complex and

non-linear In mathematics and science, a nonlinear system is a system in which the change of the output is not proportional to the change of the input. Nonlinear problems are of interest to engineers, biologists, physicists, mathematicians, and many other ...

: assemblages are formed and affected by heterogeneous populations of lower-level assemblages, but may also act back upon these components, imposing restraints or adaptations in them. DeLanda merges Deleuze's ideas of both assemblages and strata into his model of assemblages, regarding the distinction as inconsequential in the context of ''A New Philosophy of Society''. He does however maintain the idea of assemblages as non-essentialist (they are historically contingent actual entities, not instances of ideal forms) and non-totalizing (assemblages are not seamless totalities but collections of heterogeneous components that should be analysed as such).

Examples

As an example of an assemblage (as defined by DeLanda) consider an ecosystem: * The material role here is performed by the soil, sunlight, trees, animals, etc. * The expressive role is performed by the forms, colours, habits, etc. of the aforementioned components. * The territorializing role would be played by factors such as

food chains A food chain is a linear network of links in a food web starting from producer organisms (such as grass or algae which produce their own food via photosynthesis) and ending at an apex predator species (like grizzly bears or killer whales), de ...

, adaptive traits, conducive climate and other elements that maintain the components and their relationships and thus the identity and durability of the assemblage. * The deterritorializing role would be played by such factors as

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...

invasion An invasion is a military offensive in which large numbers of combatants of one geopolitical entity aggressively enter territory owned by another such entity, generally with the objective of either: conquering; liberating or re-establishing ...

by exotic species, evolutionary

mutation In biology, a mutation is an alteration in the nucleic acid sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA. Viral genomes contain either DNA or RNA. Mutations result from errors during DNA or viral replication, m ...

and other elements that recombine or replace various components and roles within the assemblage, leading to its dissipation or reformulation. * A linguistic/coding role could be played by an environmental discourse seeking to protect an

ecosystem An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syst ...

. Consistent with DeLanda's

materialist Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds matter to be the fundamental substance in nature, and all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. According to philosophical materiali ...

position, the book also includes as a secondary task a sustained criticism of the primacy of post-modernist linguistic analysis in

social science Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of s ...

(the theory of the linguistics of experience).

Main ideas

Examples

References

Further reading