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Assemblage Urbanism and the Challenges of Critical Urban Theory

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Assemblage urbanism and the challenges of critical urban theory

Neil Brenner; David J. Madden; David Wachsmuth

Online publication date: 01 June 2011

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 CITY, VOL. 15, NO. 2, APRIL 2011

Assemblage urbanism and the

challenges of critical urban
theory

Neil Brenner, David J. Madden and David Wachsmuth1

Taylor and Francis

Against the background of contemporary worldwide transformations of urbanizing spaces,

this paper evaluates recent efforts to mobilize the concept of ‘assemblage’ as the foundation
for contemporary critical urban theory, with particular attention to a recent paper by
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McFarlane (2011a) in this journal. We argue that there is no single ‘assemblage urbanism’,
and therefore no coherence to arguing for or against the concept in general. Instead, we
distinguish between three articulations between urban political economy and assemblage
thought. While empirical and methodological applications of assemblage analysis have
generated productive insights in various strands of urban studies by building on political
economy, we suggest that the ontological application favored by McFarlane and several
other assemblage urbanists contains significant drawbacks. In explicitly rejecting concepts of
structure in favor of a ‘naïve objectivism’, it deprives itself of a key explanatory tool for
understanding the sociospatial ‘context of contexts’ in which urban spaces and locally
embedded social forces are positioned. Relatedly, such approaches do not adequately grasp
the ways in which contemporary urbanization continues to be shaped and contested through
the contradictory, hierarchical social relations and institutional forms of capitalism. Finally,
the normative foundations of such approaches are based upon a decontextualized standpoint
rather than an immanent, reflexive critique of actually existing social relations and institu-
tional arrangements. These considerations suggest that assemblage-based approaches can
most effectively contribute to critical urban theory when they are linked to theories,
concepts, methods and research agendas derived from a reinvigorated geopolitical economy.

Key words: assemblage, actor-network theory (ANT), planetary urbanization, critical urban
theory, urban political economy

Introduction Harvey, 1976; Castells, 1979 [1972]; Lefeb-

vre, 2003 [1970]) destabilized inherited

T
he field of urban studies is today Chicago School ontologies, established
confronted with significant theoret- paradigms of urban research now appear
ical, conceptual, epistemological and increasingly limited in their ability to illu-
methodological challenges. As was arguably minate contemporary urban changes and
also the case in the late 1960s and early 1970s, struggles. As in previous rounds of debate
when debates on the ‘urban question’ (e.g., on the urban question, the source of the

ISSN 1360-4813 print/ISSN 1470-3629 online/11/020225-16 © 2011 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/13604813.2011.568717
 226 CITY VOL. 15, NO. 2

contemporary ‘urban impasse’ (Thrift, regarding the site, object and agenda of
1993) is the restless periodicity and extraor- ‘urban’ research. The ‘urban question’
dinary slipperiness of the urban phenome- famously posed four decades ago by Lefeb-
non itself. Even more so than in the 1970s, vre, Harvey and Castells remains as essential
urbanization today ‘astonishes us by its as ever, but it arguably needs to be reposed,
scale; its complexity surpasses the tools of in the most fundamental way, in light of
our understanding and the instruments of early 21st-century conditions. In other
practical capacity’ (Lefebvre, 2003 [1970], words: do we really know, today, where the
p. 45). A decade ago, Soja (2000, p. xii) aptly ‘urban’ begins and ends, or what its most
captured this state of affairs: essential features are, socially, spatially or
otherwise? At minimum, the town/country
‘It may indeed be both the best of times and divide that once appeared to offer a stable,
the worst of times to be studying cities, for even self-evident, basis for delineating the
while there is so much that is new and
specificity of city settlements, today appears
challenging to respond to, there is much less
increasingly as an ideological remnant of
agreement than ever before as to how best to
early industrial capitalism that maps only
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make sense, practically and theoretically, of

the new urban worlds being created.’ problematically onto contemporary urban
processes (Wachsmuth, 2010). More radi-
Some strands of urban studies, particularly cally still, a case can be made that Lefebvre’s
those rooted in the professionalized routines postulate (2003 [1970]) of an incipient
of academic disciplines, remain mired in process of ‘complete’ or ‘planetary’ urban-
outdated research agendas that only partially ization is today being actualized in practice.
grasp the contours and consequences of Despite pervasive sociospatial unevenness
emergent urban transformations. Fortunately, and persistent territorial inequality, the
however, there is elsewhere considerable entire fabric of planetary settlement space is
intellectual adventurousness on display, as now being both extensively and intensively
urbanists across the social sciences and urbanized (Schmid, 2005; Soja and Kanai,
humanities, as well as in the cognate fields of 2005; Madden, 2011). In the face of this
planning, architecture and design, grapple prospect, and especially given the unprece-
creatively with the tasks of deciphering the dented pace, scale and volatility of contem-
rapidly transforming worldwide landscapes of porary worldwide urbanization, it seems
urbanization (Sassen, 2000; Soja, 2000; Taylor, essential to consider whether inherited
2004; Roy, 2009). Among the key agendas for concepts and methods for understanding and
such researchers is to investigate the evolving transforming cities remain at all adequate to
positionalities of cities—and urban landscapes contemporary conditions. Quite simply, the
more generally—within such large-scale, oft-repeated mantra that a global ‘urban
long-term trends as geoeconomic restructur- transition’ has recently occurred due to the
ing, market-driven regulatory change (includ- apparent fact that over half of the world’s
ing both privatization and liberalization), the population now lives within cities does not
worldwide flexibilization/informalization of even begin to capture the intellectual, repre-
labor, mass migration, environmental degra- sentational and political complexities associ-
dation, global warming, the creative destruc- ated with grasping the contemporary global
tion of large-scale territorial landscapes and urban condition.2
the intensification of polarization, inequality, It is, we would argue, certainly not a
marginalization, dispossession and social moment for intellectual modesty or a retreat
conflict at all spatial scales. from grand metanarratives, as advocated by
In the face of these developmental dynam- some poststructuralists a few decades ago.
ics, we believe there is an increasingly urgent On the contrary, from our point of view,
need to rethink our most basic assumptions there is today a need for ambitious, wide-
 BRENNER ET AL.: ASSEMBLAGE URBANISM AND THE CHALLENGES OF CRITICAL URBAN THEORY 227

reaching engagements—theoretical, concrete that question is being posed and fought out
and practical—with the planetary dimensions today. However, while we strongly support
of contemporary urbanization across diverse assemblage analysts’ concern to reinvent
places, territories and scales. Yet it would be urban theory for early 21st-century condi-
highly problematic to suggest that any single tions, our own orientations for such a project
theory, paradigm or metanarrative could, in diverge considerably from those that have to
itself, completely illuminate the processes in date been proposed by the major authors
question.3 Theoretical ambition need not be advancing this framework. In outlining this
pursued through the construction of reduc- divergence, with particular reference to
tionist, simplifying frameworks; the task, McFarlane’s recent paper in City (2011a), our
rather, is to create concepts and methods that intention is not to attempt to patrol the
open up new questions and horizons—for boundaries of theoretical innovation in
both thought and action. Accordingly, in urban studies. Rather, by posing some criti-
contrast to some of the more closed models cal questions regarding McFarlane’s frame-
of urbanism that prevailed during the high- work and the larger intellectual terrain on
points of Chicago School urban research in which it is situated, we hope to contribute to
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the 1930s through the 1960s and, in a differ- a broader dialogue, in the pages of City and
ent way, within the structuralist Marxisms of beyond, regarding the challenges of contem-
the 1970s, urban theory today must embrace porary urban theory, and the most appropri-
and even celebrate a certain degree of eclecti- ate strategies for confronting them. Because
cism. Today more than ever, there is a need we do not believe there is any single correct
for a collaborative, open-minded spirit to ‘solution’ to such challenges, our questions
prevail in urban studies, particularly among are intentionally open-ended. The goal, we
those scholars who are most committed to repeat, is to open up horizons for thought
confronting the daunting challenges of recon- and action, and through collective dialogue,
ceptualizing the parameters and purposes of investigation and debate, to begin to explore
this research field. When such scholars make these horizons.
divergent or opposed theoretical, conceptual
and methodological choices, useful opportu-
nities may emerge for all those involved to Towards assemblage urbanism?
clarify the stakes of such choices, and their
possible implications. Prior to its elaboration within urban studies,
In that spirit, our goal here is to evaluate the concept of ‘assemblage’ has been mobi-
critically the growing literature on an assem- lized towards diverse ends within several
blage-theoretical approach to urbanism, and traditions of contemporary social theory.
in particular Colin McFarlane’s recent argu- Although the word is sometimes used in a
ments in City (2011a) and elsewhere (2011b). descriptive sense, to describe the coming-
Given our remarks above regarding the situ- together of heterogeneous elements within an
ation of contemporary urban studies, we institution, place, built structure or art form
certainly welcome the innovative, intellectu- (Sassen, 2006; Madden, 2010a), its philosoph-
ally adventurous impulse behind recent ical usage in English derives principally from
assemblage-theoretical interventions by the work of Deleuze and Guattari (1987
McFarlane and others (Farías, 2010; Farías [1980]). Their concept of agencement was
and Bender, 2010). Their work represents a translated as ‘assemblage’ by Brian Massumi
serious effort to transcend certain inherited, in the English version of A Thousand Plateaus
intellectually constraining assumptions published in the late 1980s, and this conven-
regarding the urban question, and on this tion was generally preserved through a ‘loose
basis, to open up new methodological consensus’ among subsequent translators and
windows into the various forms in which commentators (Phillips, 2006, p. 108). But, as
 228 CITY VOL. 15, NO. 2

Marcus and Saka (2006) demonstrate, the as presented in a recent issue of City by
concept of assemblage has subsequently been Marcuse (2009) and Brenner (2009).
mobilized in multifarious ways, only some of As a motif within urban theory, McFarlane
which are explicitly Deleuzoguattarian (as in, argues, the notion of assemblage is primarily
for instance, the influential work of De focused upon ‘sociomaterial transformation’
Landa, 2006). Significant elements of what (2011a, p. 206), ‘grammars of gathering,
has today come to be known as ‘assemblage networking and composition’ (p. 207), and
theory’ are only partially linked to the philo- ‘interactions between human and nonhuman
sophical apparatus of Deleuze and Guattari components’ that as ‘co-functioning’ can be
(Venn, 2006). Well-known examples of the ‘stabilised’ or ‘destabilised’ through ‘mutual
latter include emergent approaches to global imbrication’ (p. 208). Assemblages are proces-
anthropology (e.g. Ong and Collier, 2004; sual relationships that ‘cannot be reduced to
Collier, 2006) and, perhaps most influentially, individual properties alone’ (p. 208). Assem-
the ‘actor-network theory’ (ANT) developed blage thinking highlights processes of compo-
by scholars such as Bruno Latour, Michel sition and recognizes diverse forms of human
Callon, John Law and their followers (for an and nonhuman agencies—while striving to
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overview, see Law and Hassard, 1999; avoid reification, reductionism and essential-
Castree, 2002; Latour, 2005). While Latour ism. In this sense, McFarlane contends, assem-
(1999, p. 19) has said that ANT is derived blage thinking has an ‘inherently empirical
from an ‘actant-rhizome ontology’, it argu- focus’ (p. 209). As urban theory, assemblage
ably departs significantly from the philosoph- thought asks how urban ‘things’—including,
ical–political project of Deleuze and Guattari quite appropriately, the urban itself—are
themselves. assembled, and how they might be disassem-
Aside from the heterodox, broadly Deleu- bled or reassembled.4
zoguattarian strand of architectural theory In the core sections of his paper, McFarlane
and criticism developed as of the late 1980s in outlines three specific contributions that he
the now-defunct journal Assemblages, it is sees the assemblage approach making to criti-
only relatively recently, above all since the cal urban theory. First, he sees assemblage
publication of Farías and Bender’s important thought as an empirical tool for engaging in
volume on the possible applications of ANT thick description of ‘urban inequalities as
in urban research (2010), that the discourse of produced through relations of history and
assemblage has been explicitly deployed as a potential’ (p. 208). He suggests that by paying
major analytical tool for more-than-descrip- detailed, ethnographic attention to processes
tive purposes in studies of cities and urban of assemblage, urbanists may better under-
space. McFarlane’s work (2011a, 2011b) stand how actually existing urban situations
builds upon and extends the latter line of are constituted and, on this basis, may be
research. Like Farías (2010) and Bender better equipped to imagine alternatives to
(2010), McFarlane argues that the concept those situations. Second, McFarlane notes,
of assemblage can help illuminate some assemblage thought can help attune research-
neglected intricacies of urban spatiality and, ers to the problematic of materiality—that is,
more generally, urban life. Additionally, to the significance and purported agency of
McFarlane attempts to specify some of the materials themselves, ‘whether [they] be
epistemological and methodological implica- glossy policy documents, housing and infra-
tions of applying this concept in specific structure materials, placards, banners and
realms of urban research—for instance, on picket lines, new and old technologies, soft-
urban inequality, particularly in the realm ware codes, credit instruments, money,
of housing. Perhaps most intriguingly, commodities, or of course the material condi-
McFarlane situates his analysis quite explic- tions of urban poverty, dispossession and
itly in the tradition of critical urban theory, inequality’ (p. 215). By ‘distributing agency
 BRENNER ET AL.: ASSEMBLAGE URBANISM AND THE CHALLENGES OF CRITICAL URBAN THEORY 229

across social and material’ entities, such that stakes and consequences of previously taken-
both human and non-human forms of agency for-granted dimensions of urban life, the
may be considered coevally, ‘assemblage assemblage-theoretical urbanism advanced by
thinking diversifies the range of agents and McFarlane and others opens up some impor-
causes of urban inequality, while potentially tant new prospects onto the urban question.
multiplying the spaces of critical intervention’ But despite these valuable contributions, we
(p. 219). Third, McFarlane sees the assemblage are concerned that McFarlane’s construction
idea as activating a more general critical of an assemblage-theoretical urbanism
‘imaginary’ (p. 219) and political sensibility remains too broadly framed, at times even
containing a distinctive image of the desirable indeterminate, to realize its proper analytical
city-to-come. While noting the risk of the potential.
idea’s co-optation by various elitist or oppres- If the assemblage approach is intended
sive projects, McFarlane offers ‘cosmopoli- simply to serve as a guiding sensibility or
tanism’ as a ‘normative political project of research orientation, such a framing might
urban assemblage’ (p. 219). prove feasible. However, like other advocates
In sum, then, McFarlane sees the concept of such an approach (e.g. Farías, 2010), McFar-
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of assemblage as opening up a variety of new lane has larger ambitions for assemblage
urban questions—or at least new orientations thought, proposing an extremely wide array
towards inherited urban questions—as well of analytical and normative purposes to which
as new sites of analysis, methodological tools, it may be applied, and attributing to it some
targets of critique and political visions. As an rather impressive explanatory capabilities, up
illustration of the potential of this discourse, to a point at which its definitional parameters
McFarlane briefly discusses his own work on become extremely vague. Rather than
urban informality in Mumbai, where he disavowing the idea’s mercurial nature,
observed ‘the crucial role that various materi- McFarlane affirms it, noting that the term
alities play in the constitution and experience assemblage is ‘increasingly used in social
of inequality, and in the possibilities of a science research, generally to connote indeter-
more equal urbanism’ (p. 216). Here, margin- minacy, emergence, becoming, processuality,
alized city dwellers ‘recycle’ the city by gath- turbulence, and the sociomateriality of
ering ‘materials … from local construction phenomena’ (2011a, p. 206). As McFarlane
debris, riverbeds, manufacturing waste, or acknowledges, the assemblage concept is
patches of tree cover’ (p. 216). Unequal access polysemic, alternately functioning ‘as an idea,
to infrastructure and other resources is an analytic, a descriptive lens, or an orienta-
shaped by the state and various other power- tion’ (p. 206); elsewhere he suggests that it is
ful actors. For some activists, the material simultaneously to be considered as a ‘concept,
networks of the city can be used as objects of process, orientation and imaginary’ (p. 208).
resistance and tools of protest, generating a The question, however, is how much and what
subaltern form of urban cosmopolitanism or type(s) of intellectual and political work this
‘one-worldism’ (p. 220) that militates for a term, and the mode of analysis associated with
new urban commons. McFarlane suggests it, can plausibly be expected to accomplish.
that an assemblage-based urban imaginary In our view, the power of the assemblage
can produce ‘new urban knowledges, collec- approach may be most productively
tives and ontologies’ (p. 221) that invoke and explored when its conceptual, methodologi-
pursue new rights to the city among the most cal, empirical and normative parameters are
marginalized city dwellers. circumscribed rather precisely. Against inter-
Insofar as it enables urban scholars to ques- pretations of this concept as the basis for
tion outdated categories and epistemologies, ‘transforming the very ground of urban stud-
to demarcate new objects and terrains of ies’ and as ‘an alternative ontology for the
urban research, and to highlight the political city’ (Farías, 2010, pp. 8, 13), we argue here
 230 CITY VOL. 15, NO. 2

for a narrower, primarily methodological alliances, growth coalitions, structured coher-

application. The concept is most useful, we ence, uneven spatial development, spatial divi-
contend, when it is mobilized in the context sions of labor and crisis formation, among
of a broader repertoire of theories, concepts, others. Without articulating his grounds for
methods and research agendas that are not doing so, McFarlane’s paper simply enacts this
derived internally from the assemblage displacement, offering neither an explicit
approach itself, whether in its ANT variant critique of these concepts nor a clear sense of
or otherwise.5 In elaborating these concerns, how the assemblage approach might better
we are particularly interested in addressing illuminate the dimensions of contemporary
what we view as the highly ambiguous status urbanization to which the latter have gener-
of political economy, and the concept of ally been applied.6 Yet the social relations,
capitalism itself, within significant strands of institutions, structural constraints, spatio-
assemblage analysis. This issue is closely temporal dynamics, conflicts, contradictions
intertwined with the still larger question of and crisis tendencies of capitalism do not
whether and how assemblage analysis might vanish simply because we stop referring to
contribute to the project of critical urban them explicitly—especially under conditions
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theory. in which their forms are undergoing deep

metamorphoses, they arguably still require
explicit theorization and analysis in any criti-
The specter of political economy cal account of the contemporary global urban
condition.
At the outset, it would appear that radical The ambiguities surrounding this issue in
urban political economy and the new theo- McFarlane’s text are replicated more gener-
retical idioms associated with assemblage ally in the recent literature on assemblage
analysis could coexist and even mutually urbanism. Among the major practitioners of
transform each other’s methodological orien- assemblage-based approaches, there appears
tations, descriptive categories and objects of to be considerable confusion as to whether
analysis (Farías and Graham, 2010). In some such categories should be mobilized to
sections of his paper, McFarlane seems to deepen, extend, transform or supersede the
support such a procedure—for instance, analysis of capitalist structurations of urban-
through his statement that he ‘do[es] not see ization. Does the term assemblage describe a
assemblage as an outright contrast to the type of hitherto-neglected research object to
complex and varied history of debates on be studied in a broadly political–economic
critical urbanism, including urban political framework—thus generating a political econ-
economy, capital accumulation, inequality, omy of urban assemblages? Is assemblage
and so on’ (2011a, p. 204). However, despite analysis meant to extend the methodology of
his suggestion that assemblage thinking can urban political economy in new directions,
build upon critical theory’s concern with thus opening up new interpretive perspec-
capitalism, the thrust of McFarlane’s analysis tives on dimensions of capitalist urbanization
actually appears to displace or even bypass that have been previously neglected or only
such considerations. partially grasped? Or, does the assemblage
Indeed, an unstated agenda of McFarlane’s approach offer a new ontological starting
paper seems to be a redescription of urban point that displaces or supersedes the intel-
processes, transformations and inequalities lectual project of urban political economy?
with almost no reference to the key concepts Following from these questions, Table 1
and concerns of radical urban political econ- identifies what we view as the three major
omy—for instance, capital accumulation, articulations between assemblage thinking
class, property relations, land rent, exploita- and political economy that have been devel-
tion, commodification, state power, territorial oped in the recent urban studies literature.
 BRENNER ET AL.: ASSEMBLAGE URBANISM AND THE CHALLENGES OF CRITICAL URBAN THEORY 231

Table 1 Articulations of assemblage analysis and urban political economy

Exemplary research Representative

Relation to urban political economy foci authors

Level 1: empirical Assemblage is understood as a specific type Technological networks Graham and
Political economy of of research object that can be analyzed within and among Marvin (2001);
urban assemblages through a political–economic framework cities (e.g. electrical Sassen (2006); Ali
and/or contextualized in relation to grids); intercity and Keil (2010);
historically and geographically specific networks; assemblages Graham (2010)
political–economic trends. of territory, authority
and rights.

Level 2: Assemblage (often in conjunction with the The production of Kaika (2005);
methodological closely related concept of ‘metabolism’) is socionatures; Heynen et al.
Assemblage as a presented as a methodological orientation infrastructural (2006); Bender
methodological through which to investigate previously disruption or collapse; (2010); Graham
extension of urban neglected dimensions of capitalist flows of energy, value, (2010); McFarlane
political economy urbanization. The core concerns of critical substances, microbes, (2011a)
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urban political economy remain central, but people, ideas.

are now extended into new realms of inquiry.

Level 3: Assemblage analysis displaces the Urban materialities Latour and Hermant
ontological investigation of capitalist urban development and infrastructures, (2006); Farías
Assemblage as an and the core concerns of urban political including buildings, (2010); various
‘alternative ontology economy (e.g. the commodification of urban highways, artifacts, contributions to
for the city’ (Farías, space, inequality and power relations, state informal settlements, Farías and Bender
2010, p. 13) intervention, polarization, uneven spatial communications (2010); Smith
development). systems, traffic flows, (2010); McFarlane
inter-urban networks (2011a, 2011b)

The rows in the table represent both the core infrastructure networks as ‘sociotechnical
logical positions in terms of which this assemblies or “machinic complexes” rather
articulation may be understood and the than as individual causal agents with identifi-
major analytical strategies that have been able “impacts” on cities and urban life’ (2001,
adopted by assemblage researchers. There is, p. 31, original emphasis). These authors do
of course, considerable overlap and slippage not draw on assemblage thinking as an onto-
among the positions outlined here, and the logical foundation, but instead mobilize
work of several authors listed in the table certain propositions from such approaches in
could be positioned in more than one row. order to reframe concrete urban analysis on
For present purposes, our intention is at once an ad hoc basis. Consequently, authors
to illustrate McFarlane’s contention that working in this tradition tend to analyze the
there is no necessary antinomy between the assemblages they have identified along more
two approaches while also demarcating the or less political–economic lines—in effect,
various ways in which researchers have they are engaged in a political economy of
explored their articulations. urban assemblages.
The first row demarcates the use of assem- In the second row, assemblage thinking
blage as a distinctive type of research object generates a predominantly methodological
within urban political economy. Sassen approach that builds upon urban political
(2006), for example, uses assemblage to refer economy while extending and reformulating
to a particular historical interrelation of terri- some of its core elements and concerns. This
tory, authority and rights, while Graham and procedure parallels the ways in which the
Marvin’s Splintering Urbanism conceives of cognate field of urban political ecology has
 232 CITY VOL. 15, NO. 2

used the idea of ‘metabolism’ to capture the or at least bracketed; categories of sociospa-
interconnected yet fluid dynamics that tial structuration such as scale and territory
characterize the production of urban socio- are understood primarily as data to be inter-
natures (Gandy, 2004; Kaika, 2005; Heynen preted rather than as theoretical, explanatory
et al., 2006; Swyngedouw, 2006). As these or interpretive tools (Smith, 2010). In this
authors note, the metabolism concept has a way, the assemblage approach comes to func-
long heritage in political economy (Foster, tion as a radical ontological alternative to
2000) as well as obvious affinities with some political economy: it is not merely a concep-
strands of contemporary assemblage analysis. tual motif, an empirical tool or a methodolog-
Urban political ecology explicitly connects ical orientation, but an alternative mapping of
these two positions, using the concept of the urban social universe. Representative
metabolism and selected methodological examples of this position include Latour and
tools from ANT to build upon and reformu- Hermant’s study of Paris (2006), Farías’s
late the treatment of socionatures within crit- programmatic statement on ANT and urban
ical urban political economy. For these studies (2010), several contributions to Farías
authors, the concept of metabolism serves and Bender’s edited volume on assemblage
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simultaneously as a way to characterize urbanism (2010), and significant segments of

objects of inquiry (particularly urban socio- McFarlane’s recent work (2011a, 2011b).
natural networks) and also as an explanatory On close reading, McFarlane’s position is
and theoretical device. On the one hand, the in fact rather ambiguous; he sometimes
metabolic circulation of matter causes it to frames his arguments in methodological
become ‘"enrolled” in associational networks terms, but he also more frequently appears to
that produce qualitative changes and qualita- adopt a strong ontological stance. Thus, at
tively new assemblages’ (Swyngedouw, 2006, certain points of his analysis, McFarlane
p. 26). On the other, urbanization itself is (2011a) seems to embrace a position within
retheorized as ‘a metabolic circulatory level 2 of the table by advocating a mutually
process that materializes as an implosion of beneficial dialogue between assemblage
socio-natural relations, a process which is theory and political economy in the service of
organized through socially articulated a revitalized critical urban theory. Substan-
networks and conduits’ (Swyngedouw, 2006, tively, however, the thrust of his elaboration
p. 35). Such arguments amount to a substan- of assemblage analysis is situated on level 3.
tial rethinking of urban theory, but it is one As he unfurls his argument, the concept of
that retains the central concerns, concepts and assemblage increasingly becomes an open-
analytical orientations of political economy ended, all-purpose and potentially limitless
within a methodologically expanded frame- set of abstractions regarding the urban ques-
work. tion that displace rather than dialogue with
Finally, in the third row, assemblage think- the questions, concerns and orientations of
ing subsumes the entire conceptual apparatus urban political economy. To capture this
and explanatory agenda of urban studies. apparent tension in his work, we have placed
Authors working in this manner look to McFarlane’s paper on both level 2 and level 3
assemblage analysis as a way to reconceptual- of the table, reflecting his declared commit-
ize the fundamental character of the (urban ment to the research agendas of radical urban
and non-urban) social world. The urban political economy along with his simulta-
process is now conceived as a huge collection neous—and in our view more forceful—
of human and nonhuman actants within a flat displacement of these concerns in the bulk of
ontology devoid of scalar or territorial differ- his concrete analysis.
entiations. Ways of understanding the city Distinguishing between these three broad
based on concepts from political economy or ways of articulating assemblage thought and
spatial sociology are considered illegitimate political economy should clarify that there is
 BRENNER ET AL.: ASSEMBLAGE URBANISM AND THE CHALLENGES OF CRITICAL URBAN THEORY 233

no single ‘assemblage urbanism’, and there- (global, national and regional) structural
fore no coherence to arguing for or against the contexts within which actants are situated
concept in general. At the same time, as the and operate—including formations of capital
preceding discussion already anticipates, we accumulation and investment/disinvestment;
believe that some of its specific manifestations historically entrenched, large-scale configu-
are more defensible than others. Specifically, rations of uneven spatial development,
we would argue that the merits of levels 1 and territorial polarization and geopolitical hege-
2—the empirical and methodological levels— mony; multiscalar frameworks of state
have already been theoretically and substan- power, territorial alliance formation and
tively demonstrated in the urban studies urban governance; and the politico-institu-
literature, and certainly warrant further elab- tional legacies of sociopolitical contestation
oration in future research. These strands of around diverse forms of dispossession, depri-
assemblage thinking have productively vation and discontent. In explicitly rejecting
amended and continue to transform the concepts of structure as remnants of an
research focus and theoretical orientation of outdated model of social science explanation
urban political economy. However, for (or in simply ignoring such concepts), onto-
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reasons we now elaborate, we are much more logical approaches to assemblage analysis
skeptical regarding the possible contributions deprive themselves of a key explanatory tool
of analyses conducted on level 3 of the table— for understanding the sociospatial, political–
assemblage as an ontology—particularly with economic and institutional contexts in which
regard to their relevance to the project of crit- urban spaces and locally embedded social
ical urban studies. forces are positioned. Within such a frame-
work, moreover, there is no immanent princi-
ple for distinguishing relevant and irrelevant
An ontology of naive objectivism and the actants, whether of a human or nonhuman
‘context of context’ nature. As Bender (2010, p. 305) explains,
such approaches risk engaging in an ‘indis-
A notable strength of much assemblage criminate absorption of elements into the
thinking is its careful attention to the multi- actor-network’ with the ‘effect of levelling
ple materialities of socionatural relations. the significance of all actors’. The result of
Additionally, the approach has pioneered the this procedure is a metaphysics of association
analysis of how and when nonhuman actants, based on what Sayer (1992, p. 45) has else-
from buildings and building materials to where aptly termed a ‘naïve objectivism’. This
infrastructural grids, forms of energy and mode of analysis presupposes that the
even weather systems, may generate signifi- ‘facts’—in this case, those of interconnection
cant forms of ‘reactive power’ or agency.7 among human and nonhuman actants—speak
But, without recourse to political economy for themselves rather than requiring media-
or to another theoretical framework attuned tion or at least animation through theoretical
to the structuration of urban processes assumptions and interpretive schemata.
(whether by capital, states, territorial alli- These issues are very much in evidence
ances or social movements), an ontologically within McFarlane’s brief analysis of infor-
inflected appropriation of assemblage analy- mal housing in Mumbai (2011a), which
sis confronts serious difficulties as a basis for offers a broad description of housing
illuminating the contemporary global urban arrangements in a marginalized neighbor-
condition. hood of that city. The experience of poverty
In particular, the descriptive focus associ- and inequality, he shows, is crucially medi-
ated with ontological variants of assemblage ated through the building materials and
urbanism leaves unaddressed important infrastructural elements that comprise the
explanatory questions regarding the broader built environment. On this basis, McFarlane
 234 CITY VOL. 15, NO. 2

appropriately suggests that the materiality of and intervention by imperial powers and
informal housing in Mumbai deserves more global institutions such as the World Bank
analytical attention due to its important role and the International Monetary Fund; differ-
in mediating the everyday experience of ential patterns of agro-industrial transforma-
poverty. As he indicates, housing is ‘both tion and associated rural–urban migration;
made and edited, in contexts of deeply state strategies to shape urbanization through
unequal resources and precarious lives’ speculative real estate development, infra-
(McFarlane, 2011a, p. 216, original empha- structural production, housing policy and
sis). But does the thick description of assem- slum clearance; and diverse forms of social
blages offered in his analysis suffice to movement mobilization at various spatial
illuminate the specific forms of inequality scales. In an analytical maneuver that is
and deprivation under investigation? To characteristic of this strand of assemblage
what degree does an assemblage-theoretical analysis, contexts such as these are scarcely
analysis help explain the underlying contexts mentioned, much less theorized or systemati-
and causes of urban sociospatial polariza- cally analyzed. However, without a sustained
tion, marginalization and deprivation, account of this context of context, the analysis
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whether in Mumbai or elsewhere? remains radically incomplete.8

While McFarlane’s rendering of assem- While the assemblage ontology focuses on
blage may shed valuable light on the dynam- the materials themselves, it is essential to
ics of making and editing, and on the broad consider the political–economic structures
spectrum of socionatural processes involved and institutions in which they are embedded.
in the latter, it is precisely the ‘contexts of In fact, the building materials under discussion
deeply unequal resources and precarious here are highly polysemic and promiscuous.
lives’ (p. 216) that are bracketed in his analy- Graffiti paint, unadorned brick, dirt in back-
sis. This bracketing is problematic insofar as yard gardens, corrugated metal—each can be
it leaves underspecified the question of what an expression of precarious impoverishment
historical geographies of land ownership, or of dominating, aestheticized prosperity,
dispossession, deprivation and struggle depending upon its context. In a telling illus-
generated and entrenched the unequal distri- tration of his conception of sociomaterial
bution of resources and the precarious life- assemblages, McFarlane asks, ‘what [is] the
conditions in the areas under discussion. particular agency of Richard Florida’s sleek
After all, many of the details McFarlane gives PowerPoint presentations of the “creative
of informal housing materiality—found city” […] when set against existing local urban
construction materials, vertical modular plans?’ (2011a, pp. 218–219). But is the real
construction, accreted rather than planned issue here the sociomateriality of PowerPoint,
built forms, and the like—would equally well or the structural contexts and institutional
describe sociomaterial conditions within locations in which this technique is deployed?
other zones of informality and marginaliza- It is quite possibly the case that policy entre-
tion in mega-cities across Latin America, the preneurs who are aligned with real estate
Middle East and South Asia (Roy and developers will use sleek PowerPoint presen-
Alsayyad, 2004). Yet the shantytowns and tations while, say, working-class housing
squatting settlements within each of these activists will not. But what matters about the
global regions are positioned in quite differ- PowerPoint presentations are the projects of
ent ways within any number of broader ideological legitimation towards which they
historical geographies of power—for are mobilized; the words, phrases and narra-
instance, global divisions of labor and circuits tives they contain have a non-arbitrary rela-
of capital investment/disinvestment; legacies tionship to historically and geographically
of colonial and postcolonial statecraft; situated, differentially empowered social
modes of geopolitical control, subordination movements, forces, alliances and institutions.
 BRENNER ET AL.: ASSEMBLAGE URBANISM AND THE CHALLENGES OF CRITICAL URBAN THEORY 235

Substitute a PowerPoint presentation focused ‘assemblage [analysis] supports this line of

on the purported benefits of the creative class critical thinking’ due to its concern to uncover
or a state-subsidized office tower for one how formations of the urban might ‘be assem-
focused on residential displacement, political bled differently’ (2011a, p. 210).
disempowerment or labor rights, and it is an The issue, however, is not whether the
assemblage with a very different form and actual and the possible are related, but how.
function, even though it may appear identical Here, we believe, there is a fundamental
in purely material terms. An empirical focus distinction worth making between dialectical
on such assemblages could be helpful in unrav- approaches to critique and those derived
eling certain aspects of such dynamics, but this internally from assemblage analysis. In
would entail exploring their contested instru- McFarlane’s account, potentiality is exterior-
mentalities within the political–economic and ity: any assemblage may, in principle, be
institutional forcefields mentioned above. By decomposed and a new one formed by
contrast, an ontological conception of assem- incorporating new sociomaterialities; these
blage substitutes for such considerations a new elements, which lie outside the extant
naive objectivism that is difficult to reconcile assemblage, supply the possibility for differ-
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with the basic questions about power, inequal- ent arrangements of human and nonhuman
ity, injustice, politicization, struggle and relations. This possibility is ontologically
mobilization that lie at the heart of critical presupposed rather than being understood as
urban theory (P. Marcuse, 2009; Soja, 2010). historically specific or immanent to the
sociomaterial relations under investigation.
Although McFarlane introduces fruitful
Actuality, possibility and critique normative categories such as the right to the
city, the commons and cosmopolitanism, the
ANT has had, at best, a lukewarm relationship assemblage approach appears to operate
with critical theory, particularly in its Marxian primarily by describing alternatives unreflex-
forms (Latour, 2004; for discussion see ively, as abstract possibilities that might be
Madden, 2010b); this generalization applies to pursued. In our view, however, this
significant strands of assemblage analysis as approach offers no clear basis on which to
well. Perhaps for this reason, those branches understand how, when and why particular
of critical urban studies that have incorpo- critical alternatives may be pursued under
rated assemblage thinking into their intellec- specific historical–geographical conditions
tual apparatus have tended to marry it to more or, more generally, why some possibilities
explicitly political–economic approaches for reassemblage are actualized over and
which supply a strong dose of critical energies. against others that are suppressed or
The authors whose work is positioned on the excluded.
empirical and methodological levels of Table A critical theory, by contrast, holds that
1 thus rely extensively upon urban political capitalism and its associated forms contain
economy to ground the critical elements of the possible as an immanent, constitutive
their respective analyses. By contrast, moment of the real—as contradiction and
McFarlane proposes to derive a distinctively negation (H. Marcuse, 1990 [1960]; Ollman,
critical stance from the methods and norma- 2003; Lefebvre, 2009). Specific historical
tive orientations of assemblage analysis. structures produce determinate constraints
McFarlane’s chief argument to this end on the possibility for social transformation,
focuses on the relationship between the actual as well as determinate, if often hidden or
and the possible which, as he acknowledges, suppressed, openings for the latter. Within
has also long been one of the primary such a framework, the impulse towards
concerns of critical theory, urban and other- critique is not an external, normative orienta-
wise (Brenner, 2009). McFarlane argues that tion or a mental abstraction, but is embedded
 236 CITY VOL. 15, NO. 2

within, and enabled by, the same structures, assemblage thought do not offer much guid-
contradictions and conflicts that constrain ance for how to change it.
the realization of what might be possible.
From this point of view, a key challenge for
any critical theory is to explicate reflexively Reassembling assemblage urbanism?
its own conditions of emergence—not
simply as a matter of individual opposition In a recent assessment of contemporary
or normative commitment, but in substan- urban theory, Roy (2009, p. 820) argues that
tively historical terms, as an essential ‘it is time to blast open [the] theoretical geog-
moment within the same contradictory, raphies’ associated with late 20th-century
dynamically evolving social totality it is urban studies and thus to produce new
concerned to decipher and ultimately to tran- ‘geographies of theory’ that can come to
scend (H. Marcuse, 1990 [1960]; Postone, terms with the contemporary global urban
1993). moment in both North and South. Our goal
When we compare this immanent, dialecti- in this paper has been to assess the degree to
cal conception of negation with the external- which various newly emergent strands of
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ist normative orientation of assemblage assemblage-theoretical urban studies can

theory, we also find a difference in political contribute to this wide-ranging intellectual
outlook. Despite its stated goal of expanding and political task. While we are broadly
our understanding of agency into nonhuman sympathetic to the empirical research agen-
realms (as argued forcefully by Bennett, das and methodological orientations that
2010), ontological forms of assemblage have been opened up through such discus-
thinking are not well equipped to identify the sions, we have expressed a range of reserva-
specific human agents and social forces that tions regarding the more ontologically
might engage in the process of social trans- grounded applications of assemblage urban-
formation. Instead, a passive-voice politics ism, which offer no more than a partial, if not
prevails in which assemblages are anony- misleading, basis for critical urban studies.
mously, almost mysteriously destabilized or By way of conclusion, we want to reiterate
dismantled. McFarlane argues, for example, the need for intellectual adventurousness and
that ‘urban assemblages are structured experimentation in this research field, and to
through various forms of power relation and underscore the useful ways in which, despite
resource and information control’ (2011a, its blind spots, the debate on urban assem-
p. 210). But if this is the case, it is essential to blages is productively contributing to such
explore who (or what, as the case may be) is impulses. It is certainly not the case that criti-
doing the structuring to whom. In a world cal urban theory, as it currently exists, has
animated by passive interactions among ready-made analytical tools for deciphering
actants, the forcefield of struggle among the rapidly transforming condition of world-
diverse sociopolitical agents battling to wide urbanization. Without a doubt, the
appropriate and reappropriate urban space questions posed by assemblage urbanists—
(P. Marcuse, 2009) is relegated to the back- for instance, regarding human/nonhuman
ground. While there are strands of assem- interfaces, networked interdependencies and
blage theory that have successfully the production of sociomaterial infrastruc-
articulated powerful, even radical, visions of tures—are essential ones, and they certainly
alternative futures (see Bennett, 2010), it deserve serious, sustained exploration in
seems impossible to pursue the latter without future forays into the urban question.
engaging with the fundamentally political Today, new forms of urbanization and
dimensions of human agency. In short, world-making (Lefebvre, 2009; Roy, 2009)
perhaps because of the inert way that they co-constitute each other in a volatile
interpret the world, ontological variants of context of geoeconomic, geopolitical and
 BRENNER ET AL.: ASSEMBLAGE URBANISM AND THE CHALLENGES OF CRITICAL URBAN THEORY 237

environmental crisis, ongoing market-driven given the continued circulation of ideological

regulatory experimentation and intense projections of world capitalism as a heterar-
sociopolitical contestation at all spatial scales. chical, cosmopolitan, flexible, borderless
As the urban condition becomes worldwide, and creative ‘world order’ that mask an
it does so not through the absolute territorial entrenched repressive agenda of (reconsti-
expansion of an inherited urban object, but tuted) market fundamentalism, accumulation
rather through the emergence of qualitatively by dispossession and deepening environmen-
new, genuinely planetary forms of urbaniza- tal catastrophe. Because assemblage thinking
tion in which a densely if unevenly urbanized opens up the prospect for thinking space as a
fabric of sociospatial and political–economic relationally overdetermined plenitude
interconnectivity is at once stretched, thick- (Bender, 2010; see also Massey, 2005), it may
ened and continually redifferentiated across offer useful insights for exploring and
places, territories and scales, throughout the mapping these emergent geographies of
space of the entire globe. This becoming- dispossession, catastrophe and possibility—
worldwide (in Lefebvre’s terms [2009], but, as we have suggested, such an exercise
mondialisation) of the urban is not simply a will be most effective when it is linked
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quantitative expansion of city populations or systematically to the intellectual tools and

an outwards extension of inherited metropol- political orientations of critical geopolitical
itan jurisdictional boundaries, but has economy.
entailed a qualitative reconstitution of the Even though the urban process has taken
urban itself in which a host of inherited on new forms in its planetary mode, we have
spatial oppositions—for instance, city/ suggested that it remains a fundamentally
suburb; urban/rural; core/periphery; North/ capitalist urban process. In our view, this
South; society/nature—are being fundamen- dimension of urbanization—mediated, of
tally rearticulated, if not superseded entirely. course, through state institutions, diverse
In light of these unprecedented trends and social forces and systemic crisis tendencies at
transformations, a key challenge for any crit- all spatial scales—figures crucially in produc-
ical approach to urban theory is to generate a ing and reproducing contemporary geogra-
new lexicon of spatial difference through phies of deprivation, dispossession and
which to grasp emergent forms of uneven marginalization, both within and among
geographical development in ways that urban regions throughout the world. Conse-
capture their tendential, planet-wide system- quently, for urban theory to remain intellec-
aticity as well as their equally pervasive vola- tually and politically relevant, it must
tility, precariousness and mutability. Could it continue to explore the prospects for the
be precisely here, faced with the extraordi- critique of capitalism that are immanent
nary challenge of mapping a worldwide yet within contemporary sociospatial relations
internally hierarchized and differentiated across places, territories and scales.
urban ensemble (Lefebvre, 2003 [1970]), that The approach to critical urban theory
the conceptual and methodological gesture proposed here is not grounded upon a tran-
facilitated through assemblage approaches shistorical metaphysics of labor, a structural-
becomes most productive? Whereas the ist framing of the urban or a class-theoretical
concept of ‘structured coherence’ presented reductionism. Instead, through a spiral move-
by Harvey (1989) confronted this problem at ment involving a combination of theoretical
the scale of an individual urban region, there reflection, methodological experimentation
is today a need to decipher the variegated and concrete research forays (Sayer, 1992), it
articulations among the disparate spatial, reflexively subjects its own explanatory appa-
political–institutional and environmental ratus to continual re-evaluation and reconsti-
elements of the emergent planetary urban tution in light of the ongoing trends,
configuration.9 This task is especially urgent contradictions and struggles associated with
 238 CITY VOL. 15, NO. 2

contemporary forms of sociospatial restruc- degrees the dwelling-place and workshop of

turing. Against this background, a key modern man [sic], but it is the initiating and
controlling center of economic, political, and
challenge is to link the analytical and method- cultural life that has drawn the most remote parts of
ological orientations of assemblage urbanism the world into its orbit and woven diverse areas,
to the tools of geopolitical economy in ways peoples, and activities into a cosmos.’
that contribute to a genuinely critical 3 This claim applies not only to the contemporary
3

approach to ongoing planetary urban trans- conjuncture: urbanization has always been an
‘open system’ insofar as its basic patterns and
formations—one that is attuned not only to consequences cannot be derived from any single
local specificities and contingencies, but also theoretical framework or causal mechanism (Sayer,
to broader, intercontextual dynamics, trajec- 1992).
tories and struggles (Roy, 2009). In short, the 4 Bender’s thoughtful postscript (2010) to his edited
4

present age demands neither the inert catego- volume with Farías on the urban applications of
ANT offers a strikingly cautious reflection on the
ries of traditional urban theory nor the same issue.
conceptual quietude to which some strands of 5
5

An interesting reference point in this context is

assemblage thought are unfortunately suscep- Amin’s recent paper in City (2007). Amin’s
tible. Instead, we must continue to seek out orientation towards the urban question (also
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the ingredients—intellectual and political— elaborated in Amin and Thrift, 2002) closely
parallels the substance of McFarlane’s argument,
for a critical imagination that is oriented but he does not classify his analysis under the
towards the possibility of a radically different assemblage rubric or even use the latter term.
type of worldwide space (Lefebvre, 2009). While some of the concerns we raise below
This in turn requires forging a critical urban regarding McFarlane’s text may also apply to
theory that is capable of grasping our global certain aspects of Amin’s framework, our focus
here is specifically on the various ways in which the
urban world ‘by the root’ (Marx, 1963, p. 52). notion of assemblage is currently being used in the
field of urban studies. However, the fact that Amin
(2007) can develop an ostensibly ANT-based
Notes approach to urbanism without relying upon the
term assemblage does open up the question of
1 This paper emerged from our collaboration in the whether McFarlane may be overloading this
1

Urban Theory Lab New York City (UTL-NYC), a concept with more analytical weight than it is
working group devoted to the challenges of properly equipped to carry.
reconceptualizing urban theory in a manner that is 6 Although the contributions included in his edited
6

adequate to emergent 21st-century transformations volume with Bender are quite heterogeneous,
and struggles. We describe this working group as Farías (2010) moves in an analogous direction in
a ‘lab’ to underscore the experimental, trial-and- his programmatic essay on ‘decentring the object
error and open-ended character of our efforts. of urban studies’. Interestingly, Farías is careful to
However, in contrast to most laboratories, our distinguish his proposed approach from traditional
experiments are devoted most centrally to problems Chicago School models of urban space, but he
of theoretical conceptualization, not to data does not discuss the post-1970s tradition of radical
collection or analysis per se. In addition to the urban political economy associated with authors
present authors, other current participants are such as Lefebvre, Castells and Harvey.
Hillary Angelo (NYU) and Natan Dotan 7 Although she does not link it specifically to the field
7

(Columbia). of urban studies, Bennett (2005, 2010) offers an

2 Louis Wirth (1995 [1937], p. 58), whose work is impressively clear philosophical and sociological
2

usually associated with more traditional explication of this position. Latour (2005) offers the
approaches to urban theory, offers a fascinatingly more standard reference point on these matters in
prescient critique of this assumption in his famous the context of a rather sweeping critique of 20th-
1937 essay on urbanism: ‘The degree to which the century social science.
contemporary world may be said to be “urban” is 8 For a discussion of the need for consideration of the
8

not fully or accurately measured by the proportion ‘context of context’ in relation to neo-Foucauldian
of the total population living in cities. The influences analyses of neoliberalization see Brenner et al.
which cities exert upon the social life of man [sic] (2010). Our critique of the ontological strand of
are greater than the ratio of the urban population assemblage urbanism here closely parallels this
would indicate, for the city is not only in ever larger argument.
9
 BRENNER ET AL.: ASSEMBLAGE URBANISM AND THE CHALLENGES OF CRITICAL URBAN THEORY 239

9 On this problem in general, see Ong and Collier Farías, I. and Graham, S. (2010) ‘Interview with Stephen
(2004); with reference to Harvey’s work, see Graham’, in I. Farías and T. Bender (eds) Urban
Brenner (1998); see also Sassen (2006) on the Assemblages: How Actor-Network Theory Changes
nature of the ‘global’. Urban Research, pp. 197–203. New York:
Routledge.
Foster, J.B. (2000) Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and
Nature. New York: Monthly Review Press.
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