Geography Compass· 2015Q1· Review
Assemblages and Actor‐networks: Rethinking Socio‐material Power, Politics and Space
- 722citations
- Q1SCImago
- 2015year
Short summary
This paper reviews how assemblage thinking and actor-network theory (ANT) offer a socio-material perspective to understand space, power, and politics as emergent from human and non-human associations.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Key points
- Assemblage and ANT conceptualize space and agency as emergent from human-non-human associations.
- These theories enable a processual, socio-material approach to power, politics, and space.
- Current scholarship focuses on deterritorialisation, power, materials/technologies, and topological space.
- Future research should integrate language, power, affect, and the body.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
Abstract Assemblage thinking and actor‐network theory (ANT) have been at the forefront of a paradigm shift that sees space and agency as the result of associating humans and non‐humans to form precarious wholes. This shift offers ways of rethinking the relations between power, politics and space from a more processual, socio‐material perspective. After sketching and comparing the concepts of the assemblage and the actor‐network, this paper reviews the current scholarship in human geography which clusters around the four themes of deterritorialisation/reterritorialisation; power; materials, objects and technologies; and topological space. Looking towards the future, it suggests that assemblage thinking and ANT would benefit from exploring links with other social theories, arguing for a more sustained engagement with issues of language and power, and affect and the body.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Geography Compass, 2015 · DOI ↗
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Field: Geography, Planning and Development
Geography, Planning and DevelopmentSocial Sciences