Book Review: Comparative and International Education (Re)assembled: Examining a Scholarly Field through an Assemblage Theory Lens

Abstract

This edited volume addresses a variety of methodological problems in the humanities comprising assemblage theory, new materialism and flat ontologies, as applied to studies in the field of comparative and international education (CIE). Some of the chapters in the book are concerned with theorising these concepts, for example in the context of actor-network theory, new materialism and critical realism. Other chapters provide worked examples in which the theories are applied in particular situations, for example in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in the establishment of a community of CIE research practice in Malaysia, in the history and development of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) as a regional assemblage. The book concludes with chapters that discuss educational leadership, didactics and the future development of CIE in terms of assemblage theory. Assemblage theory is concerned with the content and expression of connections that link human actors, communities, institutional subsystems and organisations. Epstein (p23 in this volume) proposes that assemblage theory is ‘a tool for appreciating the emergent qualities of social phenomena’. Assemblages are not to be reified as ‘things’: on the contrary, they are to be interpreted as processes. The meaning of the word ‘assemblage’ itself may be viewed as being ambiguous. As Salajan (p132 in this volume) explains, the term is an artefact of translation: the French word used by Deleuze and Guattari in their original text is agencement, which implies agency as an active process of flux and flow. This is confused by an interpretation of the term assemblage in English which may be inscribed with a connotation of passivity, that is something that is assembled (noun), rather than a process of assembly (verb). Martyn and Galvin in this volume attempt to reconceptualise assemblage theory by synthesising it with critical realism. They expand the original theory of Deleuze and Guattari by reference to assemblages in terms of ‘material forms, practices, knowledge, social organisations and forms of expression’ (p80). This extension of the theory is evidently a fertile development: Cambridge (2018) reviews an earlier attempt at the synthesis of assemblage theory and new materialism, a position which acknowledges the materiality of discourse. How might the theories developed in this book be applied to studies in the context of international schools and international education? In a critique of so-called ‘Third Culture Kid’ (TCK) discourse, Tanu (2018: 9) argues that it may be better understood ‘as an emotionally powerful insider construct that narrates identity and belonging for people with a transnational upbringing’. 1187929 JRI0010.1177/14752409231187929Journal of Research in International EducationBook Review book-review2023