Abstract
Sassen is Interested in what she terms “conceptually subterranean trends” that are for the most part invisible to current analytical methods but visible, or in her words, “legible,” to other, newer sorts of analytical tools that she herself is developing. She thus emphasizes suspension of accepted methods and development of certain “analytic tactics” that function, as she puts it, “before method.” What this means more specifically is that she is not so much analyzing the structures of existing institutions but instead pursuing a more functional approach, that is, seeking to determine how they are assembled, dis-assembled, and re-assembled. Her focus is thus on the making of non-material conditions, that is, their ..