Closer in meaning to ‘bricolage’
Assemblages, which are dynamic compositions of heterogeneous elements, emerge through processes of coding and territorialization that can undergo stratification (formation), deterritorialization (de-formation), and reterritorialization.
A rhizome is a concept in post-structuralism describing an assemblage that allows connections between any of its constituent elements, regardless of any predefined ordering, structure, or entry point.
Assemblage is a philosophical approach for studying the ontological diversity of agency, which means redistributing the capacity to act from an individual to a socio-material network of people, things, and narratives.
Also known as assemblage theory or assemblage thinking, this philosophical approach frames social complexity through fluidity, exchangeability, and their connectivity.
The central thesis is that people do not act predominantly according to personal agency; rather, human action requires material interdependencies and a network of discursive devices distributed across legal, geographical, cultural, or economic infrastructures.
The similarities among these versions include a relational view of social reality in which human action results from shifting interdependencies between material, narrative, social, and geographic elements. The theories have in common an account for emergent qualities that result from associations between human and non-humans.
An assemblage (agencement in French) is a dynamic, heterogeneous collection of elements that come together (articulate) in varying speeds to form a temporary, functional whole that has effects. Assemblages are not fixed structures or essential identities; they are constantly shifting, evolving, and adapting based on the interactions (articulations) of their components.