Deleuze’s theory of desire, affects and assemblages. Nick J Fox University of Sheffield

To understand the body, let us ask: what can it do?

My best friend at the office introduced me to Viagra a week after he saw my attitude change at the office due to my noticeable depression. Thanks to Viagra, I felt I am gaining my manhood again, but now lazy of doing sex without the blue pill. I am now becoming a big fan of Viagra, and afraid of having sex without it. (George) Fox and Ward (2008)

Introduction The Deleuzian ontology of bodies. The body-with-organs. Body assemblages. D/G and the sociology of health and illness. Gilles Deleuze (top), and Felix Guattari

Deleuze and Guattari Gilles Deleuze ( ) – philosopher. Felix Guattari ( ) – psychotherapist and activist. Together they wrote:  Anti-Oedipus (1984)  A Thousand Plateaus (1988)  What is Philosophy? (1992)

The Deleuzian Ontology Relations Assemblages Affect Productive desire Territorialisation The Body-without-organs

In a nutshell... The relations between bodies, things and ideas form assemblages. Relations are affected by, or affect others in the assemblage. These flows of affect territorialise a body’s capacities to desire: what a body can do. These body capacities, subjectivities, categories are the body-without-organs.

Relations Bodies, objects, ideas, etc. come into being only in relation to others. Relations can be: Physical (e.g. medicines, technologies). Psychological (e.g. memories, attitudes, subjectivity). Social-cultural (e.g. beliefs, social institutions). Philosophical and abstract (e.g. science, Marxism, humanism).

Assemblages are... ‘a kind of chaotic network of habitual and non- habitual connections, always in flux, always reassembling in different ways’ (Potts 2004: 19). Image: ‘The bride stripped bare by her bachelors, even’. Marcel Duchamp,1923.

Affect The capacity to affect or be affected.... is a becoming (DG 1988: 256). Affect changes the state of a body or entity. Flows of affect in assemblages produce bodies, identity, social life, history, social institutions, discourses. Flows of affect, not ‘agency’.

Desire Pygmalion: the heart desires, by Edward Burne -Jones

Territorialisation Flows of affect in assemblages territorialise body capabilities and desires. The body can be territorialised by habituation, learning, or conditioning. The body can be de-territorialised by novel relations added to the assemblage, making resistance and a line of flight possible.

The body-without-organs (BwO) The BwO is the sum of a body’s physical, psychological, social capacities: what it can do. It is produced by flows of affect in assemblages. The body-with-organs is the BwO stolen from us by biomedicine (cf. DG 1988: 276).

D/G, bodies and sociology Assemblages of relations not single bodies and individuals. Flows of affect not agency. Territorialisations not social structures. What bodies can do, not what they are.

Biomedicine (BM) and the body A body of organs. A body in BM’s image of ‘health’ or ‘illness’. A body to be observed and documented. This is the Body-with- organs

Bodies are... neither fixed nor given, but … particular historical configurations of the material and immaterial, captured and articulated through various assemblages which to some extent determine them as particular bodies, but never manage entirely to exclude the movement of differing and the possibility of becoming otherwise (Currier 2003: 332).

The body-assemblage Bodies are assembled by flows of affect from biological, social, economic, political and abstract relations. These produce its capacities to desire: what it can do.

Deleuze and Guattari ask: Given a certain effect, what machine [assemblage] is capable of producing it? And given a certain machine, what can it be used for? Deleuze and Guattari 1984: 3

My best friend at the office introduced me to Viagra a week after he saw my attitude change at the office due to my noticeable depression. Thanks to Viagra, I felt I am gaining my manhood again, but now lazy of doing sex without the blue pill. I am now becoming a big fan of Viagra, and afraid of having sex without it. (George) Fox and Ward (2008)

An erectile assemblage bedroom – penis – sex partner - male sexuality – Viagra – work colleague - consumerism – pharmaceutical industry – profit - capitalism (Fox and Ward 2008a) This erection-assemblage links the bedroom and the boardroom.

Flows of affect... Erectile dysfunction affects penis, mood, identity. Friend suggests Viagra. Viagra affects penis, mood, partner, but also produces a sexuality dependent on drug. Consumption affects Pfizer profits. Capitalism affects R & D on new drugs.

Territorialisation of the ED body: Stereotyped male sexuality. Sex defined by penetration. Fitness, body shape, ageing. Anxieties and emotions. Drug actions and interactions. Capitalist relations of production and consumption.

What can D/G offer to SHI? a)Re-thinking key conceptualisations in sociology of health, illness and bodies. b)Politics of biomedicine and resistance to territorialisation. c)Anti-humanist and methodological re- focusing on assemblages and affects.

Re-thinking key concepts Not what a body is, but what are its capacities, and how are these produced. Agency rests in flows of affect, not human subjects. Identity is a territorialisation by body-assemblage. Class, race, gender are territorialisations of actions. Emotions as affects that produce capacities. No micro- and macro-levels of analysis.

The politics of medicine and care Critique of the biomedical/scientific/ industrial and economic assemblage. Care, health policy, public health are territorialisations of bodies, but can also be de-territorialisation that enhances capacities. Resistance and refusal always possible (makes all care political).

The biomedical assemblage patient – disease – doctor – biomedicine – health technology – care system – economy – capitalism – wealth In this assemblage the micro-level of illness and its treatment are linked to the macro- level of the economy and politics.

The care assemblage body - carer – care system – family – gender - class – wealth – economy - capitalism Flows of affect in this assemblage territorialise bodies. Cared-for bodies have few capacities. Carers can add new capacities and enable a line of flight (Fox 2012)

An anti-humanist agenda Re-focus away from individualised accounts of identity, reflexivity and experiences. Qualitative interview methodologies should explore assemblages and affects, not experience and agency. How bodies resist territorialisation.

Further Reading Fox, N.J. (2012) The Body. Cambridge: Polity. Fox N J. (2011) The ill-health assemblage: beyond the body-with-organs. Health Sociology Review, 20 (4): Fox, N.J. and Ward, K.J. (2008a) What are health identities and how may we study them? Sociology of Health and Illness, 30 (7),

In the Fox-assemblage Deleuze and Guattari Ansell Pearson Latour Buchanan De Landa Potts

Deleuze, desire and assemblages. Nick J Fox University of Sheffield