#11856. Re-thinking housing through assemblages: Lessons from a Deleuzean visit to an informal settlement in Dhaka
July 2026 | publication date |
Proposal available till | 27-05-2025 |
4 total number of authors per manuscript | 0 $ |
The title of the journal is available only for the authors who have already paid for |
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Journal’s subject area: |
Sociology and Political Science;
Urban Studies;
Environmental Science (miscellaneous); |
Places in the authors’ list:
1 place - free (for sale)
2 place - free (for sale)
3 place - free (for sale)
4 place - free (for sale)
More details about the manuscript: Science Citation Index Expanded or/and Social Sciences Citation Index
Abstract:
A spectre haunts how we think about housing—describing it in binaries, in oppositions, in ‘essentialised’ identities (formal/informal, north/south, social/spatial, product/process). What does a more nuanced understanding of assemblages—drawn from the original work of Deleuze and Guattari—have to offer housing studies to move beyond such dichotomies? This paper outlines a conceptual framework where housing is re-thought as an unfolding of socio-material processual-relations and desires forming a field of intensities. This theoretical framework is used to think through empirical findings from a six-month socio-spatial ethnography. The findings, seen through assemblages, allow identifying, firstly, the interconnections between different actors across different binaries that make it work and secondly, the different modes of settlement’s production itself. Lastly, the paper recasts the settlement as a manifestation of a landscape of intersecting desires in an effort to speak of housing in a new language transcending the stifling dichotomy of top-down/bottom-up.
Keywords:
Assemblage; Deleuze; desire; housing; informal settlement
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