Activism and the academy: Assembling knowledge for social justice (original) (raw)

This paper asks whether assemblage theory provides a useful way of thinking through the challenges of knowledge production for social justice in the context of the relationship between social movement activism and the academy. We begin by describing the problems associated with spatial metaphors that reinforce reified generalities whereby ‘horizontal’ social movements are opposed to hierarchical higher education (HE) institutions. We then give a brief account of DeLanda’s (2006) interpretation of the assemblage, focusing on the concepts of immanence and difference, actual and virtual and deand re-territorialisation. Having described the problem and sketched out the theoretical context, we move on to consider the analytical value of assemblage theory, focusing on the merits of its materialist anti-essentialism. This leads on to a critical discussion of the ways in which speed and mobility are inscribed with normative value in some political readings of assemblage theory. We argue aga...