Assemblages and Identitarian Articulations

Abstract The article advances our understanding of “identifications,” such as race, class, gender, familial, and religious, which are seen as active processes continuously reconstituted through interactions (with objects, technologies, discourses, and bodies) in assemblages. “Identitarian articulations” represent the unique entanglements of these identifications within different assemblages. This concept highlights how identifications interact dynamically within a given assemblage, creating distinct articulations that reflect the particular assemblage’s characteristics. The text emphasizes that assemblages are not static but ongoing processes shaped by desires and interactions among their components (people, objects, technologies, discourses, and emotions). These interactions affect the capacities of the identifications involved. We understand capacities as potential actions stemming from identifications, suggesting that while properties define entities, their capacities reveal what they can do in relation to others. In summary, the article investigates how identifications, through their entanglement, trigger specific identitarian articulations within varying assemblages and the role of capacities in these processes.