What do Assemblage Studies do? Looking for the Politics in the Assemblage of Assemblage Studies.

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 1:45 pm - Gold 2
  In Roundtable Session: Temporalities, Difference, and Educational Futures

Abstract

Does the concept of an assemblage function primarily to clear out obstructions to open-ended analysis? History would suggest that unconstrained social analysis, however well intended, can hide white supremacist, colonialist, and other problematic ideologies. Or does assemblage theory enable or even require new affirmative norms and ethico-political priorities in social analysis? This presentation favors the later thesis, but wonders how far assemblage theory can go in an affirmative axiological direction. It examines the origin of the concept for its normative content. It then examines three widely cited studies: Anna Tsing’s The Mushroom at the End of the World, Jasbir Puar’s The Right to Maim, and Boni Wozolek’s Assemblages of Violence, for examples of a latent politics of assemblage theory.

Authors

• Jerry L. Rosiek, University of Oregon

• Sage Hatch, University of Oregon