Introduction

What makes you you? Traditional thinking might point to some fixed essence, a core identity that remains stable across time. Assemblage Theory offers a radically different answer: you are a dynamic gathering of countless elements, biological and social, material and expressive, always in process, always becoming.

Developed by French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in their landmark work A Thousand Plateaus (1980), Assemblage Theory provides a way of understanding how complex wholes emerge from the interaction of heterogeneous parts. The French term agencement, often translated “assemblage,” captures both the process of fitting parts together and the resulting ensemble. Unlike a machine where each part has a predetermined function, an assemblage is more like an ecosystem: its components maintain their own identities while also participating in something larger, and the whole can shift dramatically when components are added, removed, or reconfigured.

For neurodiversity scholarship, Assemblage Theory has become an important theoretical tool. It allows researchers to understand experiences like Autistic Joy or sensory processing not as products of a fixed neurological “essence” but as emergent phenomena arising from the interaction of bodily dispositions, environmental conditions, social relationships, technologies, and countless other factors. This framework validates the reality of neurological differences while refusing to reduce people to diagnostic categories.

Key Aspects

Relations of Exteriority

One of Assemblage Theory’s most important insights is that the parts of an assemblage relate to each other externally rather than internally. This means components retain their own identity and capacities outside the assemblage. A person remains a person whether or not they are part of a family, a workplace, or a community. This stands in contrast to “organic totality” thinking, where parts are defined entirely by their relationship to the whole. For disability studies, this principle means that a person is not defined by their diagnosis; they bring their own capacities and potentials to every situation they enter.

Material and Expressive Dimensions

Every assemblage has two fundamental dimensions. The material dimension includes bodies, objects, spaces, and physical processes. The expressive dimension includes language, symbols, affects, and meanings. Neither dimension determines the other; they interact and co-produce each other. Understanding Autistic experience, for instance, requires attention to both the material reality of sensory processing differences and the expressive world of Autistic culture, language, and community.

Territorialization and Deterritorialization

Assemblages are characterized by processes that stabilize or destabilize them. Territorialization refers to processes that create boundaries, establish routines, and consolidate identity. Deterritorialization refers to processes that dissolve boundaries, disrupt patterns, and open up new possibilities. These are not opposites but co-occurring tendencies. A diagnostic label, for example, can territorialize (fix a person within a medical category) while simultaneously deterritorializing (connecting them to a community of others who share that label, opening new understandings of self).

Coding and Decoding

Related to territorialization, coding refers to how assemblages become organized, categorized, and regulated. Medical and psychiatric systems code neurodivergent people through diagnostic criteria, behavioral checklists, and deficit-based language. Decoding involves challenging or escaping these imposed categories. The neurodiversity movement can be understood as a collective effort to decode pathologizing frameworks and recode neurological difference as natural human variation.

Assemblages of Assemblages

A crucial insight from Manuel DeLanda’s systematization of the theory is that assemblages are nested: every component of an assemblage is itself an assemblage. A person is an assemblage of biological systems, memories, habits, and relationships. A community is an assemblage of persons, spaces, practices, and histories. This “flat ontology” means there is no privileged level of analysis. Understanding neurodivergent experience may require attention to neuronal processes, embodied habits, family dynamics, institutional practices, and cultural discourses simultaneously.

How It Feels

“When I first encountered Assemblage Theory, something clicked. For years I had struggled with the question: “Am I my autism, or do I have autism?” Neither felt right. Assemblage thinking let me see that I am a gathering of many things, and my neurology is one important component that shapes how I experience the world, but I am not reducible to it. I am always more than any label can capture, always in process.” — Autistic doctoral student in philosophy, 29

“As a therapist working with neurodivergent clients, I find assemblage thinking incredibly practical. Instead of asking “what’s wrong with this person,” I ask “what elements are coming together in this person’s life, and how might we reconfigure things to support flourishing?” It shifts the focus from fixing individuals to understanding and transforming situations.” — Neurodivergent-affirming psychologist, 41

In Everyday Life

Consider how an Autistic person’s experience of a grocery store emerges from countless interacting elements: the fluorescent lighting, the acoustic properties of the space, the person’s current energy levels and sensory thresholds, whether they have a shopping list, whether they encountered traffic stress on the drive over, the cultural expectations about how shoppers should behave, the availability (or absence) of quiet hours, and much more. No single factor determines the experience. It emerges from the assemblage.

Or consider how a special interest develops: a chance encounter with a topic, a book or video that sparks curiosity, the monotropic attention style that enables deep focus, access to resources for learning more, perhaps a community of others who share the interest, the joy that reinforces continued engagement. The interest is not simply “in” the person; it emerges from the assemblage of person, topic, resources, community, and circumstances.

Assemblage thinking also illuminates why the same person can thrive in one environment and struggle in another. The person has not changed, but the assemblage has. This insight has profound implications for support: rather than trying to change neurodivergent individuals to fit hostile environments, we can focus on transforming the assemblages within which they live.

Why This Matters

Beyond the Medical Model and Social Model

Disability studies has long debated between medical model approaches (which locate disability in individual bodies) and social model approaches (which locate disability in social barriers). Assemblage Theory offers a way beyond this impasse. It acknowledges that bodies matter, that neurological differences are real and consequential, without reducing people to their diagnoses. Simultaneously, it recognizes that experience emerges from social and environmental conditions without treating bodies as blank slates written upon by culture.

As disability scholar Michael Feely argues, Assemblage Theory allows disability studies to “return to the material world and material bodies without a return to essentialism.” This is crucial for neurodiversity: it validates the reality of neurological differences while refusing the pathologizing frameworks that have historically accompanied biological explanations.

Understanding Heterogeneity

One persistent challenge in autism research is heterogeneity: Autistic people differ enormously from one another. Traditional approaches treat this as a problem to be solved through better subtyping or genetic analysis. Assemblage Theory suggests heterogeneity is not a problem but a fundamental feature of how complex phenomena work. Each Autistic person is a unique assemblage, and their autism emerges differently depending on what other components are present. This validates the community insight that “if you’ve met one Autistic person, you’ve met one Autistic person.”

Mapping Possibilities

Perhaps most importantly, Assemblage Theory is oriented toward possibility and change. Because assemblages are dynamic rather than fixed, they can always be reconfigured. Understanding the components and processes that produce disabling situations opens possibilities for intervention. As philosopher Brian Massumi writes, assemblage thinking is “a desire for life, and more to life.” For neurodiversity advocates, it provides tools for imagining and creating worlds where neurodivergent people flourish.

History

• 1972: Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari publish Anti-Oedipus, introducing concepts that would develop into assemblage theory, including the “desiring-machine” as a productive configuration of heterogeneous elements.
• 1980: Deleuze and Guattari publish A Thousand Plateaus, where assemblage (agencement) emerges as a central concept. They define assemblage as “a multiplicity which is made up of many heterogeneous terms and which establishes liaisons, relations between them.”
• 1987: English translation of A Thousand Plateaus brings assemblage thinking to Anglophone audiences, though the translation of agencement as “assemblage” loses some of the original’s processual connotations.
• 2006: Manuel DeLanda publishes A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity, systematizing Deleuze and Guattari’s scattered insights into a coherent social ontology and introducing the concept to social science audiences.
• 2012: Roets and Braidotti publish “Nomadology and Subjectivity: Deleuze, Guattari and Critical Disability Studies,” explicitly connecting assemblage thinking to disability scholarship.
• 2016: Michael Feely publishes “Disability Studies after the Ontological Turn,” arguing that assemblage theory allows disability studies to engage with material bodies without essentialism, influencing subsequent neurodiversity scholarship.
• 2016: Manuel DeLanda publishes Assemblage Theory, providing the most comprehensive and accessible treatment of the framework, emphasizing its applicability across domains from linguistics to military history.
• 2019: Goodley et al. publish “Provocations for Critical Disability Studies,” furthering the integration of posthumanist and assemblage approaches into disability scholarship.
• 2020s: Assemblage Theory increasingly appears in neurodiversity and autism scholarship, including Wassell’s (2026) study of Autistic Joy, which uses assemblage thinking to understand how joy emerges from the interaction of Autistic dispositions and environmental conditions.

Applications in Neurodiversity Scholarship

Understanding Autistic Joy

Elliot Wassell’s (2026) study of Autistic Joy exemplifies assemblage thinking applied to neurodivergent experience. Rather than locating joy solely in Autistic neurology or solely in social conditions, Wassell shows how joy emerges from the assemblage of monotropic attention styles, sensory environments, passionate interests, social acceptance, and countless other factors. This explains both commonalities (many Autistic people report intense joy from special interests) and heterogeneity (the specific sources and expressions of joy vary enormously).

Analyzing Disabling Situations

Assemblage analysis can map the multiple factors that produce disabling situations. A classroom that disables an Autistic student might involve fluorescent lighting, acoustic chaos, social expectations for eye contact, curriculum pacing that prevents deep engagement, and absence of stimming accommodations. Intervention can target any of these components rather than focusing solely on “fixing” the student.

Imagining Neurodivergent Futures

Because assemblages are dynamic and reconfigurable, assemblage thinking supports imagining different possibilities. What assemblages might enable neurodivergent flourishing? What components would need to come together? This future-oriented aspect aligns with the neurodiversity movement’s emphasis on creating worlds where neurological diversity is valued rather than pathologized.

Related Concepts

• Autistic Joy
• Monotropism
• Critical Disability Studies
• Neurodiversity Paradigm
• Social Model of Disability
• Double Empathy Problem
• Process Philosophy
• New Materialism
• Posthumanism
• Autistic Rhizome
• Affect Theory

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Note: Assemblage Theory involves complex philosophical concepts that can be challenging to access. This entry prioritizes practical applications for understanding neurodivergent experience while acknowledging that the full theoretical framework extends far beyond what can be covered here. Readers interested in deeper engagement are encouraged to explore DeLanda’s accessible introductions before tackling Deleuze and Guattari’s original texts.

References

• Buchanan, I. (2021). Assemblage theory and method. Bloomsbury Academic.
• DeLanda, M. (2006). A new philosophy of society: Assemblage theory and social complexity. Continuum.
• DeLanda, M. (2016). Assemblage theory. Edinburgh University Press.
• Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1984). Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and schizophrenia (R. Hurley, M. Seem, & H. R. Lane, Trans.). Athlone. (Original work published 1972)
• Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia (B. Massumi, Trans.). Continuum. (Original work published 1980)
• Feely, M. (2016). Disability studies after the ontological turn: A return to the material world and material bodies without a return to essentialism. Disability & Society, 31(7), 863–883. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2016.1208603
• Goodley, D., Lawthom, R., Liddiard, K., & Runswick-Cole, K. (2019). Provocations for critical disability studies. Disability & Society, 34(6), 972–997. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2019.1566889
• Massumi, B. (2002). Parables for the virtual: Movement, affect, sensation. Duke University Press.
• Massumi, B. (2015). Politics of affect. Polity.
• Milton, D. (2012). On the ontological status of autism: The ‘double empathy problem.’ Disability & Society, 27(6), 883–887. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2012.710008
• Roets, G., & Braidotti, R. (2012). Nomadology and subjectivity: Deleuze, Guattari and critical disability studies. In D. Goodley, B. Hughes, & L. Davis (Eds.), Disability and social theory: New developments and directions (pp. 161–178). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137023001_10
• Rosqvist, H. B., Chown, N., & Stenning, A. (Eds.). (2020). Neurodiversity studies: A new critical paradigm. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429322297
• Wassell, E. (2026). Experiences of autistic joy. Disability & Society, 41(1), 236–261. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2025.2498417