Assemblage theory and its discontents

At least since the publication of Taylor Webb’s landmark work Teacher Assemblage there has been a high level of interest in Deleuze and Guattari’s work in Education Studies. Undoubtedly the major reason for this interest is the perceived close connection between Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the assemblage and Foucault’s concepts of power and governmentality. Webb explicitly situates his work at this intersection of these three concepts, with the aim of using the combination to map the effects of surveillance on teachers (Webb 2009: 30). Webb’s work offers a salient reminder too that assemblage theory, at its origin in the work of Deleuze and Guattari, was always concerned about questions of power.