In my research study, the signature-logbook-student-event creates an assemblage that has a powerful influence in shaping what matters in student learning. Rather than the logbook providing a passive recording of student learning it seems to drive the students’ actions and inactions.
The concept of the assemblage was conceived by Deleuze and Guattari (1987). It is complex; more than a collection of elements working together. This English term originates from the French word “agencement” which gives emphasis to the agency and potential associated with the intra-actions (Barad 2007) of the elements in an assemblage. There is a process of becoming through the arrangements and connections with other concepts (Phillips 2006). According to Jackson and Mazzei (2016:105)
the agentic assemblage is a hub of emergence and possibility with various agents coming in and out of focus….. consider forces, vitalities, things, that act on and through vital materialities to produce the assemblage that we also become with/in
Our work as educators and researchers immerses us in the process of becoming-with different assemblages. Assemblage theory moves us beyond a humanistic view of self-containment and self-regulation. Rather, each of our bodies can be seen as a part of the “material relations” that influence and “structure the other material relations [that are] around it” (De Freitas & Sinclair 2014:34).
Assemblages change over time and space. In the Deleuze dictionary Graham Livesey (2010:18) describes assemblages as “constellations of objects, bodies, expressions, qualities, and territories that come together for varying periods of time to ideally create new ways of functioning”. This productivity and generation of newness has important implications for education.
The image above was created on my iPad using StickyBoard
References
Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway: Quantum physics and the entanglement of
matter and meaning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
De Freitas, E. & N. SInclair (2014). Mathematics and the Body Material Entanglements in the Classroom. Cambridge University Press. New York.
Deleuze, G., & Guattari. F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia.
Trans. B. Massumi. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Jackson, A. Y. & Mazzei, L. A. (2016). Thinking with an Agentic Assemblage in Posthuman Inquiry. In C. A. Taylor and C. Hughes (Eds.), Posthuman research practices in education. Palgrave Macmillan, New York.
Livesey, G. (2005). Assemblage. In A. Parr (Ed.), The Deleuze dictionary.. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press.
Phillips, J. (2006). Agencement/assemblage. Theory, Culture & Society, 23, 108-109.
