Assemblage Theory and Method
Ian Buchanan
Buchanan returns to the philosophical foundations of assemblage theory in the work of Deleuze and Guattari, reconstructing the first principles of assemblage thinking, clarifying concepts that have often been simplified or misunderstood as the theory spread across the social sciences.
At its core, the book shows that assemblages are not simply collections of things. They are dynamic configurations of bodies, expressions, desires and forces that produce events and forms in the world. Buchanan explains key ideas such as strata, territorialisation, abstract machines and the role of desire, emphasising that assemblages operate through the interaction of material arrangements and expressive systems.
A central contribution of the book is its critique of contemporary interpretations of assemblage theory that reduce it to material networks or loose metaphors for interconnectedness. Buchanan argues that such interpretations strip away the concept’s philosophical depth, particularly its connection to desire, creativity and the production of social reality.
Assemblage thinking offers a powerful way to approach change in complex cultural, social, organisational and political systems. It helps us understand how elements connect without collapsing into a single whole, how background conditions create both stability and possibility, and how new configurations can emerge to produce qualitative transformations. In the language of assemblage theory, this involves understanding territories, and the processes of deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation through which systems shift and reorganise.
“What is of central importance – and the reason why the assemblage is such a powerful concept – is the question of what it takes to yoke together these two dimensions in the first place: this is what the assemblage does. We have to stop thinking of the concept of the assemblage as a way of describing a thing or situation and instead see it for what it was always intended to be, a way of analysing a thing or situation. Faced with any apparent assemblage we should ask: what holds it together? What are its limits (internal and external) and what function does it fulfil?”
Steven Sullivan
Strategic Design Director
