Abstract
This response to Kevin Cox (2013) links questions relating to critical realism to recent debates on assemblage theory in geography. It argues that similar issues about ontology have been raised in the latter’s version of realism, though they have been answered differently. A key difference between the two is assemblage theory’s rejection of internal relations in favour of a more restrictive ontology of universal external relations. I argue that we need to avoid both the totalizing view of the world implied in some of Cox’s (2013) comments and the universal external relations ontology of assemblage theory.
I have to say that, apart from 1960s music, including Jethro Tull’s wonderful ‘(No More) Living in the Past’, I’m not an enthusiast for nostalgia, so, forgive me, Kevin, but I’ll start by engaging with recent debates about realism, including in geography.
On the prompting of a geographer friend, John Allen, who occasionally updates me on developments in the subject, I’ve recently read Manuel DeLanda’s book A New Philosophy of Society (DeLanda, 2006). Influenced by Deleuze and Guattari, it’s a realist philosophy, focussing, like critical realism, primarily on ontology. It considers many interesting ways of thinking about space, society and nature. It shares a lot with critical realism – more than I think the author realises – but it differs principally in arguing that there are no internal relations, only relations of exteriority. It is strongest in helping us think about how things – or rather ‘assemblages’ – develop, mutate and disintegrate and re-form over time and space. It’s easy to see why it should be of interest to researchers on society and space (see, e.g. Anderson et al., 2012 and the response by Allen, 2012). In asking questions like: ‘(c)an relations change without the terms also changing?’ and ‘Are actual entities exhausted by their position within relations?’ Anderson et al. reopen issues that were previously debated in critical realism in geography – issues to which some of Cox’s (2013) questions allude.
Given that it emphasizes assemblages and change or formation, it’s not surprising that it sees all relations as exterior. Internal relations are ones in which the very nature of the relata depend on the relation. I used to give the example of the landlord–tenant relation, arguing that one couldn’t be a landlord without a tenant, and vice versa, likewise student and tutor, and most instances of parent and child. However, internal relations are seen as universal in totalizing ontologies such as that of Bertell Ollman, which David Harvey endorsed; everything is internally related to everything else. As DeLanda points out, following Mario Bunge, the idea of a ‘block universe’ in which no relations are external faces the problem of explaining change, and the glaring independence or indifference of many things to other things. When Cox (2013) criticises critical realism for breaking up ‘the underlying unity of the social totality’, he is assuming exactly what needs to be questioned. But then there are lots of non-totalizing takes on Marxist theory too (see, e.g. Wright, 2000).
Critical realist ontology is less restrictive than either totalizing ontologies or assemblage theory’s ontology of universal external relations. As Allen notes, it takes an intermediate position, arguing that there are both some internally related things and some other externally related things, and determining their nature is an empirical matter. Of course internally related things like the landlord–tenant relation have to come into being and can terminate, and one has to explain how this happens – something I should have said more about in my own work. This is where concepts of emergent powers come into play, that is, powers that are dependent on but irreducible to those of their constituents and the wider context. It is good to see this being taken up in a new variant of realism (see also Elder-Vass, 2011 for an extensive critical realist discussion of emergence). My argument would be that under certain conditions, formerly separate entities – in this case, two individuals – can, with the aid of certain shared understandings and templates, materials and pressures (land and the need of the landless in a situation of minority private ownership of land), set up an internal relation. It does so because it leads to a form of social interaction – paying rent in return for permission to occupy land – which then partly alters the individuals concerned and makes them interdependent in certain respects. Of course, the internally related aspects of the individuals involved does not exhaust their properties (to answer one of Anderson et al.’s questions); they have many other, usually externally related ones too.
Many cases of internal relations involve forms of interdependence that are difficult – though not impossible – to break or unlock. This kind of interlocking is central to the critical realist concept of structure that Cox (2013) mentions. People may initially encounter each other as externally related individuals, but they may become, in part, internally related, and certain emergent powers arise. Some social relations are more durable (difficult to break) than others, though even the more durable ones flex somewhat without breaking – indeed that’s partly why they last. In some cases, as with couples, or parent–child relations – each individual becomes altered through the relationship, and although the relationship may break, when that happens, they do not revert to how they were before, for they have become different persons as a result of the relationship, and different again afterwards, as we know from bereavement. So I would argue for a relational view of persons, in which to some degree individuals can, in certain respects, come to be internally related to certain others, but relatively indifferent to others.
The totalizing ontology of universal internal relations might be construed as a reaction against reductionist, atomistic ontology, in fact a kind of inversion of it – a block or organism instead of a heap of atoms. Assemblage theory avoids reductionism because it takes account of emergence. And as Allen notes, assemblages are formed of components in relations. But I query whether one should throw out internal relations altogether, though of course it depends on how the terms external and internal relations are defined. I also worry about the risk of losing the idea of space and places as relationally constituted à la Massey, where relations are practices, with no gaps between them, and where everything is always changing albeit at vastly different speeds (Massey, 2005).
In his response to Anderson et al., in which he takes the authors to task for evading the issue of realism, Allen raises the issue of essences, and this also bears on Cox’s (2013) queries about capital and its durability or resilience. As far as essences are concerned, I would argue that it’s a matter of how high you want to set the bar. To explain: variation or difference goes all the way down, or so it seems, though some things vary a lot more than others; even variation varies. There may be variation within molecules – for example, in H2O – but for most practical purposes, we can regard it as having a fixed essence (which of course includes it’s capacity to take different forms – solid, liquid or gas – according to temperature and pressure). It varies in invariant ways, wherever it is and it would seem an affectation to treat it otherwise. Social phenomena are much more variable, even the most durable ones. A relatively durable one, like the capital relation, has emergent powers, a kind of structural integrity that makes its parts interdependent or interlocking and difficult to break apart (though it has self-destructive tendencies too). It can flex and stretch, though not limitlessly, and it can attach itself to and modify a vast range of things. If you set the bar for defining an essence low enough then you could say it has one, but if you want to keep the bar high then you wouldn’t. Either way, it doesn’t really matter. The important point is to address what makes such a structure – or if you like, assemblage – relatively durable, and seeming to involve an interlocking and mutual modification of formerly externally related materials.
A new colleague in geography at Lancaster, Arun Saldanha, writes about ‘the stickiness’ of certain relations which make groups of hitherto separate individuals cohere. His use of the Deleuzian concept of ‘viscosity’ might be construed as a different way of conceptualizing flexible yet relatively enduring coherence. But maybe the sticky sometimes becomes stuck. And maybe there should be space for a concept of fields of attraction and repulsion in our ontology. Further, in a discussion of race and phenotypes, he argues against idealist tendencies that are silent on objective differences and reduce them to processes of social construction (see also Carter, 2000; Saldanha, 2006). All this suggests to me that the realist concern with ontology is alive in new forms and it’s fruitful to engage with it. How can we best conceptualise relations, difference and similarity, flux and durability? How can we avoid the idealist tendency to reduce all difference to a matter of the performativity of concepts? At the least, I would warn against restrictive, monistic ontologies, which only allow one kind of relation, as in assemblage theory’s assumption that all relations are external.
As to whether critical realism has any influence today in geography, I’m too ‘undisciplined’ to be sure but it seems to crop up now and again (e.g. Allen, 2012; Jessop et al., 2008). After 29 years, I am amazed to find that Method in Social Science is still selling steadily, though maybe not to many geographers (Sayer, 1984/1992/2011). The questions Cox (2013) raises are dealt with in my Realism and Social Science, which he ignores (2000, p. 108–129; 136–139). His account of critical realism gets several basic things wrong. It’s an epistemology that secretes an ontology? (Cox, 2013, note 8): no – exactly the opposite! Critical realist abstraction just goes from concrete to abstract?: no, one then needs to go back to the concrete, step by step – that was the point! Much was written by critical realists on how one does this in geography and how this differed from some (not all) Marxist approaches. And pace Gunn, the move from concrete to abstract should not be confused with a move from real to concept; it is always a move from concepts of the concrete to concepts of the abstract – and back again. Space is socially produced? Obviously yes, where it is, but not all space is – for example, the distribution of continents and mountain ranges. The idea that capital modifies contexts to create its own supports is one which I’ve argued too, both in terms of abstract theory (Sayer, 2000) and empirical studies (Morgan and Sayer, 1988), as did Massey in her own work on industry and space (Massey, 1984). Yes, of course space relations are not external to capital, for as a material social relation, capital always takes some spatial form or other; but it can take a huge variety of forms, so that says remarkably little about either capital or space.
Sorry if that all sounds very grumpy, but it’s refreshing to escape this obsessive concern with old debates and discover new ones. So, let’s not prolong or add to those past misunderstandings, especially when the contemporary debate about realist ontologies is more interesting and fruitful!