The Carpenter and the Bricoleur

Abstract

In this conversation with the editors, Saskia Sassen and Aihwa Ong reflect back on their different experiences of ‘thinking with assemblage’. They discuss the issue of deploying this approach as an analytic tactic to unveil the unseen and to unpack macro-categories. Referring back to some of their main works in the past few years, they remind us of the challenges of cross-disciplinary translation and the need for ‘untheoretical’ and grounded approaches even to global applications of the word ‘assemblage’. Reflecting on their respective differences, as a carpenter of social theory and and a bricoleur anthropologist, they consider the role of the assemblage theorists vis-à-vis one’s own assemblage of theory, field and theoretical assumptions.