ABSTRACT
Writing about assemblages as method might strike a methodological purist as paradoxical, perhaps even contradictory. Method is about clarity and order, about rigour, robustness and systematic application. Assemblages – to the extent that there is an agreed-upon definition – are specific, contingent and always already in the process of changing, thus rendering application to a predefined social universe difficult. Approaching assemblages as method is accordingly to endorse Law’s (2006) inducement to “make a mess with method”; to seek to capture some of the inherent heterogeneity, contingency and plasticity of contemporary social life. This is particularly pertinent for those social sciences dealing with the global. As the pace of the various transformations associated with globalization has quickened, our existing vocabularies and categories often lag behind and struggle to describe and help us understand the complex dynamics and constellations that make up the contemporary global landscape. Cherished concepts like state, society and nations may still retain analytical and descriptive value, but they may also act as straitjackets forcing us to perceive the world in predetermined ways and thus blind us to actually existing and emerging social formations and relations. This chapter suggests that as an approach to the study of the global, assemblage thinking provides productive openings for the generation of new critical knowledge and the identification and formulation of new problematics that escape the reach of many more conventional approaches and methods. While no method can do full justice to the complexity of the world, thinking in terms of assemblages demands an intellectual openness to the seemingly infinite possibilities of social ordering and hence enhances our capacities for both understanding and critique.
