DeLanda on Assemblages

I’ve been reading some recent work by Manuel DeLanda lately and I think I may have found in it something useful for the sort of inquiry into contemporary social and political (i.e., cultural) forms I am involved in. My hunch, at this point, is that what DeLanda describes as ‘assemblages’ are in fact quite similar to what Dewey describes as ‘publics’ (on which see point below). Rather than spelling out this comparative hunch, though, I’ll simply offer a brief description of what I take assemblage theory to be all about.