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Summary
Having outlined his objections to abstracted totalities by deconstructing the notion of organic unity in chapter one, and rejecting the notion of enduring essences by discussing emergent processes and complex causality in chapter two, Manuel DeLanda sets out in chapter three of
A New Philosophy of Society to operationalize his ontology, and begin exploring actual assemblages from “the bottom up”.
DeLanda begins by justifying his decision to start his analysis at the personal-human level with an appeal to convenience. DeLanda tells us that starting at the personal and human level provides the most convenient small-scale unit from which to start talking about larger social assemblages, while also conceding the possibility that one might just as well begin at the more fundamental sub-personal levels (perhaps with atoms, molecules or cells?).
Starting with human subjectivity, DeLanda believes all that is required for us to begin understanding social reality on the personal level is a “plausible model of the human subject which meets the constraints of assemblage theory, that is, a model in which the subject emerges as relations of exteriority are established among the contents of experience” (p.47). And DeLanda, following Deleuze, offers a Humean theory of sense impressions as just such a model.
Briefly, DeLanda endorses Hume’s suggestion that our ideas and experiences emerge from “distinct and separable sense impressions” (p.48). Hume’s empiricist psychology posits ideas as direct expressions of sense impressions with varying degrees of intensity. These sensual ideas are then organized by habitual processes of association, comparison and rudimentary causal reasoning. DeLanda suggests that this kind of species-wide associative thinking is drives the habitual synthesis of repetitive experience to generate “pragmatic subjects” (p.49) who make their way in the world as self-organized and embodied individual identities capable of real-world problem-solving. This account of the sensual and associative reasoning of pragmatic subjects effectively characterizes a
personal level assemblage, with the requisite capacities to act practically as well as socially.
DeLanda then goes on to outline the material and expressive dimensions of the subject-assemblage: the material properties of the personal assemblage are bodily dispositions and “mechanisms”, such as the neurological realizations of the three bio-cognitive processes mentioned above (habitual association, comparison and basic causal reasoning); whereas the expressive properties of assemblages at the personal level can be found in both linguistic and non-linguistic components such as ideas, emotional affects, and gestures.
Moreover, the territorialization of the embodied subject-assemblage takes place through further associative cognitions and identity formation, where habitual repetition and routine associations constantly reinforce worldviews and orientations in the world. Deterritorialization, on the other hand, takes place through destabilizing states such as delirium or madness, or through “augmentation of capacities” (p.50) such as acquiring new skills or losing previous abilities.
Having offered what he believes to be a plausible model of the subject, DeLanda then takes the reader ‘up’ one level to the “ephemeral assemblages” of
social encounters. Here DeLanda calls upon the work of
Erving Goffman, the Canadian sociologist most often associated with what has been called the
dramaturgical approach. DeLanda uses Goffman’s work on conversations to sketch out the genesis of social realities by focusing on those properties of social encounters that cannot be reduced to their component parts. That is, at the level of social encounters between two or more people conversations generate emergent relations between individuals in addition to the personally assembled traits and properties of those involved. What often emerges between conversants is the ritualized enforcements of normative behaviors (and codes). The normative content in such cases is provided by the cultural contents (ideas, practices, etc.) and contexts within which conversations take place.
For DeLanda conversations, as with all assemblages, also possess components performing both material and expressive roles. The main material component of conversations for Goffman and DeLanda is “copresence” – defined as “human bodies correctly assembled in space, close enough to hear each other and physically oriented towards one another” (p.53). The expressive role is played by both the flow of language making up the content of the conversation, as well as the claims and displays each participant is making about their own personas through gestures, style of communication, and choice of themes.
DeLanda argues that conversations then territorialize through “behavioral processes defining its borders in space and time” (p.54). The spatial boundaries can be simple, as in the case of direct physical copresencing, or complex, as in the case of people interacting at a distance through various communication technologies. DeLanda’s main point here is that individuals always consummate or “ratify” their conversations through some sort of copresencing, and thereby enter into various “states of talk”. Likewise, conversations can be deterritorialized by disrupting the state of talk and breaking the copresencing of those involved. One example of deterritorialization DeLanda provides is when someone in the conversation is humiliated thereby intervening on one of the interlocutor’s persona displays (ego-games) and effectively ending the conversation, if not the relationship.
From personal assemblages and the small-scale social assemblages of conversations DeLanda then moves on to extend his conceptualization of social reality to include even larger-scale
interpersonal networks. DeLanda understands interpersonal networks as longer-lasting social assemblages emerging from the repeated social encounters between people. DeLanda asserts that interpersonal networks are emergent quasi-entities that feature properties not entirely reducible to the attributes of the people who participate in them:
“That is, it is the pattern of recurring links, as well as the properties of those links, which forms the subject of study, not the attributes of the persons occupying positions in a network. These attributes (such as gender or race) are clearly very important in the study of human interactions, but some of the emergent properties of networks tend to remain the same despite changes in those attributes.” (p.56)
Some of the emergent properties of these larger-scale assemblages DeLanda wants to highlight here are: the
strength or frequency of interactions between particular people;
density, a measure of the connectivity among indirect links; and
stability, understood as the “systematic interdependence between attitudes” (p.56) in the network. DeLanda’s clearest example of what occurs within interpersonal networks is when he describes how networks can combine both stability and density to generate a high degree of interpersonal
solidarity. (e.g., shared identities or goals).
Of course the specific character of interpersonal networks, as larger-scale social assemblages, depends entirely on the myriad kinds of material and expressive components involved in its continued existence. In addition to the material bodies of the people involved, there is the time and energy spent on maintaining relationships, the exchange of material resources between people, and ritualized expressions of solidarity and trust as a means to demonstrate participant's willingness to maintain relations.
At this level, we must also be aware of the complex dynamics that necessarily unfold when so many individual andnon-human materials, expressions, dispositions and forces come together – dynamics that can push, pull or augment social assemblages and networks in a variety of ways.
As DeLanda writes,
“Interpersonal networks are subject to a variety of centripetal and centrifugal forces that are the main sources of territorialization and deterritorialization. Among the former the most important is the existence of conflict between different communities. Conflict has the effect of exaggerating the distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them’, that is, it sharpens the boundaries between insiders and outsiders…
"Examples of centrifugal forces include any process that decreases a network’s density, such as social mobility and secularization. Social mobility weakens links by making people less interdependent and by promoting a greater acceptance of difference through less local and more cosmopolitan attitudes. Secularization implies, among other things, the elimination of some of the rituals which, like churchgoing, are important to the maintenance of traditional solidarity” (pp.57-58).
DeLanda emphasizes how shared narratives and categories play an important role in either maintaining are destabilizing interpersonal networks viz. the importance of personal and group identity. Shared narratives or contentious discoursing between and within groups can rigidify existing identifications and interpersonal relations, creating high degrees of solidarity, or they can disrupt cohesiveness and compel participants to form alternative networks and interactions.
Applying a principle laid out in a previous chapter, DeLanda then continues the journey upwards in scale by arguing that, like other assemblages, interpersonal networks exist in populations and therefore have the potential to form even larger-scale networks. The interactions between two or more interpersonal networks, then, provide opportunities for such networks to, in some cases, create extensive political alliances or coalitions among communities.
Using the example of “social movements” as important large-scale social assemblages consisting of two or more interpersonal networks, DeLanda, following Tilly, argues that social movements tend to be generated from two or more collectives, each dedicating resources towards the achieving the same expressed political goal. Social movements use interpersonal networks for resource mobilization as well as the deployment of “contention repertoires” (tactics, methods and tools used to gain political leverage) to affect various changes within the wider social milieu. DeLanda’s exploration of the material and expressive components of social movements here includes a fascinating discussion of the changing historical circumstances of contention repertoires in the 18th and 19th centuries as various social movements moved toward seeking legitimation in the wider juridico-administrative public spheres.
Another important example DeLanda provides of social assemblages consisting of sets of interpersonal networks is that of
social classes. Here is how DeLanda characterizes social classes as social assemblages:
“To speak of classes is to say that the population of networks inhabiting a particular country have differential access to a variety of resources and are unevenly exposed to a variety of constraints. In other words, the existence of social classes presupposes that there are processes taking place in populations of networks that sort them out into ranks in such a way that the persons composing those networks are born with different life opportunities and risks” (pp.62-63).
DeLanda concludes that social classes can be conceptualized as assemblages of interpersonal networks and institutions, but, taken in the context of what DeLanda has already sketched out in so far in this chapter regarding personal-subject assemblages, the small-scale assemblages of social encounters, and larger-scale interpersonal networks, even the limited amount of words he devotes to the issue evokes a rich and complex reflection upon how class distinctions are made and maintained through the expressions and experience of objective material conditions.
Oddly, DeLanda ends chapter three with a rather shallow reading of the work of anthropologist/sociologist
Pierre Bourdieu. DeLanda admonishes the late Bourdieu for his theory of
habitus, characterizing it as a theory of “automatism” wherein Bourdieu mistakenly explains away human agency with an appeal to socially enforced dispositions and motivations.
I don’t have the time to launch into an extended defense of Bourdieu here, but I would suggest that DeLanda’s reading of Bourdieu’s conception of
habitus is conspicuous in his lack of appreciation for how Bourdieu actually deployed the concept. Although the concept of
habitus has been used as early as Aristotle, and later by Husserl, Max Weber, Marcel Mauss and a few others, it was only ever extensively elaborated by Bourdieu. In Bourdieu’s more empirical and ethnographic research he deployed the term to describe the socially (and structurally) acquired and enduring sensibilities, dispositions and cognitive patterns people accumulate in their encounters with the world. For Bourdieu
habitus signified the subconscious aspects of human cognition only, and was not at all meant to characterize the totality of our ability to think and reason in the world. In fact, Bourdieu wrote at length about the formidable powers of people to augment and complexify their
habitus and activate the more conscious and “reflexive” aspects of their subjectivity. It is rather unfortunate, I believe, that DeLanda took it upon himself to insert what seems to be such a trivial and superficial critique, when he could have just as easily aligned Bourdieu’s important and illuminating thought with his own attempts to elucidate the social realm.
Some Thoughts
There is far too much going on in this chapter for me to comment on everything I find interesting, but I would like to briefly touch on three issues I think could use some work or fleshing out:
1. The characterization of individual human assemblages
Although DeLanda’s use of Hume’s psychology is interesting I don’t find it entirely convincing as an adequate model of human cognition. First off, the notion that discrete sense impressions lead directly to singular ideas is pure metaphysics. In comparison to what we already know about the synesthetic nature of awareness (where nervous systems activate multiple parts of their brains simultaneously in relation to a whole mosaic of sensory stimulation), or the embodied sources of meaning, Hume’s psychology comes off as quaint.
Instead, i wonder what might be accomplished with an assemblage theory that replaces Hume with the insights of contemporary neuroscience, and/or the sophistications of
4EA (embodied, embedded, enactive, extended, affective) cognitive researchers and theory? And how much more plausible and useful would it be to theorize personal-assemblages in terms of the science of
epigenetics and developmental psychology? I could go on, but I’m sure you get the point.
However, there were several other comments made on the issue of personal assemblages that I found useful:
For instance, I agree with DeLanda on the importance of pre-linguistic intelligence, and think there is much to learn from pursuing research and speculation on the origins of language and meaning in pre-linguistic communication. Language is not the be-all-end-all of human awareness. I’ll also just briefly mention the
recent research on crow and raven intelligence and its implications for theories of animal sentience.
G.H Mead also had some early insight into communication as gesture as well.
Also DeLanda’s mention of individual human assemblages as “
pragmatic subjects” is appreciated. There are several linkages that can be made here between the ontology of agency and the insights from other fields of research in this regard. From an anthropological perspective humans are evolved creatures with a unique endowment for personal adaptation and coping. We are way-finding creatures and every aspect of human subjectivity and behavior is shaped by the influence of generations of evolutionary pressures and adaptations. Our ability to affect and be affected necessarily extends from our deep animal heritage – a biological and cultural legacy that afforded us broad and flexible repertoires to innovate, create and sometimes abuse as we make our way in the world.
2. Signification (semantic) and Significance (pragmatic)
In his comments on the properties of conversations DeLanda returns to the distinction between significance and signification (p.55). DeLanda argues that the pragmatic dimension of language (‘significance’) can be witnessed in the consequences of our utterances in our daily lives. I couldn’t agree more, and would venture to suggest that because all signification has significance we must seriously entertain the notion that all “meaning” can in some way be understood in terms of evolved animal sentience, situated action and social performance. Again, I won’t take this suggestion too far here, but instead just acknowledge the many ways in which we might want to pursue a materialist, naturalist, or
biosemiotic conception of meaning and human consequence.
3. Social Movements and Class
DeLanda’s take on the objective existence and genesis of social classes is important. Although I am well aware of DeLanda’s disapproval of Marx’s work, I think there could be some fruitful cross-fertilization between (neo)assemblage theory and (neo)Marxist conceptions of ‘species-being’ as well as for thinking relations, forces and modes of production. Indeed, I think the kind of detailed ontological investigation of the multiple layers of social reality DeLanda is attempting here accords, or at least could be reconciled with the ethical imperatives at the core of Marx’s analysis of the ‘structure’ of inequality. An adequate assemblage theory, for example, could easily replace the notions of base and superstructure, and provide a much more informative and empirical ontology of power from which to launch ethical critiques of exploitation, dominance, or even very specific policies and practices. A adequately realist ontography of power and social life would also be important when designing technical-political interventions for the improvement of existing social conditions.
In fact, I have been thinking about just such linkages (between realist ontography, social justice and political ecology) for some time now under the conceptual umbrella of “praxis/infrastructure”. (imagine my surprise to recently learn that Graham Harman has
a project tentatively “infrastructure” as well!) The gist of my thinking on this front so far is that in order to increase our capacity for human flourishing and decrease the occurrences of human suffering in the world (and doing so sustainably) we are going to have to start thinking more about infrastructure as the historical non-linear development of planetary systems and local sub-ecologies. Humans are not destroying nature, we
are nature. Civilization doesn’t have to “return” to nature, we have to
express it better. There are various lines of flight we could follow out of our current situations, but until we start to truly reckon with the deep structural realities of our terrestrial finitude we ain’t going to get around to actually following any of them through.
Ultimately, to return to the book, however accurate or misguided DeLanda’s particular ontological model may be (and I suggest it is more accurate than not), what he does show us in chapter three is just how important it is to acquaint ourselves with the multiple scales, deep connections and intricate details existing within any given social milieu. Only by taking as full account as possible of the materials, expressions and complex relations of actual social assemblages - from pre-personal components to large-scale networks – will we begin to truly understand human social life.
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