In this article, I discuss how the space of the classroom is a contested object that is constituted by historical, cultural, political, social, psychological, and discursive practices (Lefebvre in The production of space, Blackwell, Oxford, UK, 1991). I then employ Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of “assemblage” to characterize the ways in which educational spaces cohere “content and affect” quoted in Puar (Terrorist assemblages: Homonationalism in queer times, Duke University Press, Durham, 2007, 193) into discursive figures of the heteronormative and racialized (...) national “family.” Finally, I argue that in order to advance contemporary theorizing on safe space we might consider shifting the metaphor of the classroom (and/or schooling) as a situation of home (in loco parentis) to that of a metaphor of camp. As a discursive practice, “camp” is like “home” in that it has multiple associations of past histories. However, the advantage of the metaphor of classroom as camp allows for a more capacious range of past histories of association, from recreation to temporary inhabitation to forced relocation, thus foregrounding the innate political implications of theorizing space. Moreover, the metaphor of camp implies transience (whether real or imaginary) while keeping in mind the partial and situated nature of particular places and spaces. Foregrounding the transient component/feature of safe space allows us to make visible and explore the possibilities and limitations of conceptualizing relations of power as circuitous, contested and performative through competing claims to particular places as objects of safety. (shrink)

The concept of the line of flight is used with striking regularity throughout A Thousand Plateaus where it plays a vital role in connecting the other conceptual innovations of the book, including the concepts of the assemblage and the machine. Despite its importance, Deleuze and Guattari never offer a direct definition of the concept, and the reader of A Thousand Plateaus is left to discern its meaning from its various uses. This is especially frustrating for those whose interest in the (...) text is political and who wish to use the conceptual framework of the book to analyse the socio-political assemblages in which they live. In response to this issue, this paper offers a clear and concise introduction to the concept of the line of flight. Furthermore, by analysing the way in which Deleuze and Guattari use this concept in their political analyses of feudalism and capitalism, this article illuminates the more general meaning of the concept of the line of flight through the more specific question of its usage in Deleuze and Guattari's attempt to think a post-capitalist future. (shrink)

From the time of British colonial settlement, innumerable taonga have been appropriated from the indigenous Māori population of Aotearoa/New Zealand, from cloaks, weapons, carvings and musical instruments to the practices and products of tā moko. This article focuses on the topic of cultural appropriation, homing in on a recent legal case, Whitmill v. Warner Bros., in which an artist sued Warner Bros. in a US court for pirating a ‘ Māori-inspired’ tattoo created for Mike Tyson, so as to tease out (...) the conflicts between intellectual property laws and norms on one hand, and international frameworks for human and cultural rights on the other. It examines the implications of the case for tā moko as an indigenous artistic tradition, and the tension between human/artistic and cultural rights, before discussing potential remedial strategies, drawing on the findings of the Wai 262 report into claims concerning New Zealand law and policy affecting Māori culture and identity. Theoretically, it employs Manuel DeLanda’s assemblage theory as a framework for analysis, the benefit of DeLanda’s work being that it provides a novel approach circumventing the usual ontological terms of intellectual property laws and norms, which tend towards a kind of methodological individualism or micro-reductionism. (shrink)

In this article I take the notion of the mobility assemblage as a theoretical lens through which I consider entanglements between refugee and migrant women on the move, intense experiences of gendered labour, and affective encounters in crossing borders and following lines of flight. The analysis revolves around the life-story of a young refugee woman, who recounts her experiences of travelling to Greece. What emerges from her narrative is a whirl of lines of flight that deterritorialize her from patriarchal regimes, (...) harsh border practices, labour exploitation and the pain of separation on a plane of remaking her present and reimagining her future. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop the concept ofaffective milieusby building on the recently established notion ofaffective arrangements. Affective arrangements bring together the more analytical research of situated affectivity with affect studies informed by cultural theory. As such, this concept takes a step past the usual synchronic understanding of situatedness toward an understanding of the social, dynamic, historical, and cultural situatedness of individuals in relation to situated affectivity. However, I argue that affective arrangements remain too narrow in their scope of analysis (...) since their focus mainly lies on local, marked-off, and unique constellations of affect relations. They neglect the more mundane and day-to-day affect dynamics of social life. Hence, I introduce the notion of affective milieus, which brings to light the everyday, ubiquitous affective engagements of individuals with their socio-material surroundings. Affective milieus specifically call attention to how commonplace affect relations create territories in the social universe which form and mold individuals all the time. In that way, this paper apprehends and advances recent developments in the research on situated affectivity. (shrink)

Although Hurricane Katrina precipitated considerable reflection across various media, a practice crucial to our capacities to apprehend and interpret the disaster has not yet been analyzed as such. I call this practice generative assembly. I don’t mean the events of emergency and political gathering that took place in response to the massive storm and fatal, preventable levee failures—although I will propose connections between different forms of assembly. Instead I mean a kind of documentary practice. That practice, which can be undertaken (...) individually or in collaboration, and sometimes at anonymous remove, involves the work of assembling records and signifiers related to the disaster into particular kinds of media artifacts. Those artifacts— which take shape in formats as varied as comics, photobooks, paintings, films, exhibitions, and multithousand-item online archives—characteristically maintain the active appearance and interactive potential of selection and arrangement. In exhibiting such qualities, or so I will argue, these assembly-based artifacts support various articulable and often highly effective kinds of generativity. And thus, I will further suggest, these artifacts can constitute especially powerful means of intervening in prevailing conditions of representation and remembrance around events of environmental and social violence. Crucially, those material legacies of generative assembly can also fall short, fail, and deceive, and this is especially true of those assemblies that take digital forms. It is my contention, however, that we would be misguided if we thus entirely dismissed such assemblies or if we refused their potential for dissident reuse or generative reassembly. (shrink)

This article introduces and develops the concept of trade narrative to understand how business sectors defend against public disapproval and the threat of increased regulation or removed subsidy. Trade narrative works by accumulating lists of benefits and occluding costs, and is created by consultants for economic interests organized via trade associations. This represents an under-analysed ‘policy-based evidence machine’, the aim of which is to format the discourses of the media and political classes about the contribution of the sector in ways (...) that frame political choice about what is thinkable and doable. In doing so it supports elite power by providing a relay for intra-elite communication. Using illustrations from privatized railways, banking and pharmaceuticals in the UK and US, the argument explores how the causal arrow runs in the opposite direction from that supposed in most discussion of discourse-economy relations in the field of cultural economy. (shrink)

A parallel reading of ten powerful works of conceptual and analytical originality yields a novel epistemological method based on the possibility of automated experimentation in engineering and architecture. An initial protocol for Parametric Epistemic Things, a particular kind of assemblage (as postulated by DeLanda following Deleuze & Guattari) that builds on Rheinberger’s ideas of Epistemic Things, is outlined and conceptualised to allow for the possibility of such automation. Following the interpretations of fragments from the texts, a discussion examines future potentials (...) and identifies some of the conceptual and pragmatic thresholds to overcome in order to leverage the proposal and situate it within a general theory of science and research, while attempting to answer the question at the heart of this essay: what is the role of parametric epistemic things in contemporary evolutionary architecture? (shrink)

From Cairo to Occupy Wall Street, from Istanbul Gezi Park to DANS protests in Sofia, in recent public sphere movements we have witnessed the emergence of a new wave of creative protest. The surge of creative forms of political action brings to the fore the question of democratic potential of creative political protest. This paper explores in what ways creative protest could deepen democracy. I argue that creative political protest nurtures democracy by generating a peaceful culture of resistance and by (...) providing a peaceful way of responding to politics of intolerance and polarization. (shrink)