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schizoanalysis | TAMSIN LORRAINE
In 1972, the publication in France of Gilfos Deleuze and Felix
Guattsri's book, Anti-Oedipus, resonated with the growing
challenges to structuralism and lacanian psychoanalysis
that arose with the- political upheaval of May 1988. In this
book, Deieuze and Guattari deride psychoanalysis for
reducing the anarchic productivity of unconscious desire
to the familial desires played out in the Oedipal triangle,
They object to the psychoanalytic figuring of desire as lack
and contend instead that desire Is productive and flows
according to Immanent principles. On their view, under-
standing that desire according to an interpretative schema
externally imposed upon its unfolding not only fails to
capture its dynamic becoming, hut literally thwarts its
creative progress. Psychoanalysis is a normative, normal-
izing theory that would reduce the multiple forms destre
can take. Schizoanalysis is their proposal for an alternative
form of analysis. Instead of referring all desire to the per-
sonal identities of the Oedipal triangle, schizDanafysis
pursues the breaks and flows linking elements of life
according to a desire that unfoids of itself wltiiout refer-
ence to anything that transcends fts own becoming. That
is, schizoanalysis deliberately pursues the:multiple unfold-
ings of desire that link the prepersonal elements of psychic
life in ways too 'peculiar' to consolidate the identities of
conventional familial and social life. This form of analysis
would shun interpretation entirely and instead constitutes
a practice with the express intent of mobilizing flows con-
necting the elements of psychic fife across traditional 'bar-
riers' with the hoped-for effect of enlivening individuals
and fostering energizing links that connect those individu-
als to one another in novel ways.
In A Thousand Plate$u$, the follow-up to Anti-Oedipus
first published in 1980, Deleuze and Guattari claim that the
meaning pronounced by authors in a book about the world
can be trapped within the signification snd desire of 'dom-
inated' subjects. While traditional tfieory (for example,
psychoanalysis) tends to present itself as an interpretation
of a world it would represent, Delete and Guattari
describe their book as an assemblage that aspires to be an
experiment'in contact with the real'. The theory of schizo-
analysis {orwhatthey also call deterritorialization, destrat-
iftcation or the construction of a body without organs,
among other terms) presented in A Thousand Plateaus, is
meant not to provide 'interpretations' of life, but rather
'maps' that could lead us to new realities. Interpretations
trace already established patterns of meaning; maps
pursue connections, or what Oeleuze and Guattari call
lines of flight', not readily perceptible to the normative sub-
jects of dominant reality. Their notion of a collective
assemblage of enunciation suggests that a theory extracts
a unified perspective from an impersonal array of virtual
relations with concrete consequences for the social field
as a whole. The events of language that a theory attributes
tc states of affairs do not simply reflect a reality they
cannot affect, but rather bring about whatthey call 'incor-
poreal transformations' that are a Creative participant in
the heterogeneous mix of human life. The writing assem-
blage of Oeleuze, Guattari, words 9Ud world resulting in A
Thousand Pteteeus is meant to establish connections
between fields of reality representation and subjectivity
that defy the tredi&ma I divisions of world, book and a utbor.
It is their hope that these connections will precipitate vital
afteroatives for Irving through the reading assemblages
that pass them along.
pefeuze and Guattan characterize a way of doing
theory in 4 Timsmd Plateaus thatfyroinates the shift
their conception Of schizoahaiysis ta kes from what sta rte-d
as a critique of psychoanalysis and oedipaf subjectivity m
AnfcQedipus to the broader conception of mapping that
emerges in the later work. Schizoanaiysis is no more inter-
ested in maintaining its own ."identity as 'schizoanaiysis'
than ft is in mewteMng the personal identity of the selves it
analyses. And yet, Deleuze and Siiattari's proposal to
tinderstand Jridivkroaiion as an unfolding series of states
provides art alternate means for reeogniziRg mdwidasls (be
they theories or nuntan subjects) without excluding the
creative evolutions of their becoming, fh whet follows i
elaborate the project of schizoanaiysis that emerges in
these two works ir> fight of the conception of linguistic pro-
duction ^captured in soon terms as 'collective assemblage'
and 'mcorporear transformation!characterized in A
Thousand Plateaus: deleitzeens* Gtfattarfs conception-of Pf0poatiansexpf8ss-fehttnt,ort6 beoome-Whate- do not
theory as an evolving force actualizing the virteal-reaf of represent a state of affairs, but 'anticipate them or move
iangua§e with pragmatic implications for a dynamic social
field suggests that we need to consider the effects of
words as serioysly as we consider the effects of o*her
actions m the world. They believe that the most ethical
theory is ultimately the one that is roost responsive to life -
even if this means being 'true' to mutating flows of desire
rather than the boundaries of already established iden-
tities. Such a view, as we will see, has important repercas-
sions for how we understand ourselves as welt as how we
theorize the world.
Ac cordingtoDeleoze and Suattari, books contain state-
ments that are evaluated by their readers against the back-
ground of pragmaticJmpfiee&wts, implicit presuppositions
and incorporeal transformations that 'make sense' in a
given lime and place, The direct discourse of a book is
extracted from the indirect discourse of what Defeaze and
Guattari call the collective assemblage of emmcJation in
keeping with implicit rales of the 'operations of signifteace'
and the 'proceedings of subfectffication' regulating our nor-
mative notions of meaningful sentences and speaking sub-
jects. When a man stands on the deck of a ship as he
searches the horizon for a whale, thers Is a set of bodies -.
man, ship, water, whale - that act and are acted upon.
Bodies {taken in the broadest sense > are affected by actions
and passions (he isnow walkingorswirwning,joyfuforsadK
They are also the object of hpn-corporea! afttributionihe.is
• •:
now married, or divorced, or tenured). The statements,
'Ahab bunts the white whate' or 'Abab becomes-woajs',
express incorporeal transformations or events that can be
distinguished from^e actions and passions of bodies. The
collective assemblage of enunciation entails incorporeal
transformations'ctrrrent in a given society' that are attrib-
utedfetfte'bsdiss of "iliat society' }WP;Ml The et-ems my
them bacfc, skrwtbern down or speed then tip, separate or
combine them, delimitthere » a different way |ATF, 86). Toe
event of becoming-whate implies a different set of virtual
relations than the event of hunting: the assemblage
expressing the former event rather than the latter attributes
distinctive incorporeal transformations to Ahab's actions
that wifi produce unpredictable effects in future assem-
blages of readers, book ann\world. •S'jSpeeb acts do not
sifrqaty represent states of aifsirs, hut iritentens wM? them.
Pa.rtofthegoalof A ThottsmdPlateausistQ thwkrtthe nor-
f%
*

mative divisions of sutoor, world and book thai foster the
illusion of a personal seif commentme, trpon 8 world from
which it is separate. 'Speaking in tongues. To write is
perhaps to bring this assemblage of the ifnceascross to the
light of day, to select the whispering voices, to gather the
tribes and secret idioms front wfeich i extract something j
ca» my Self fAfo/HATR 8%
SeMzoertafysis, uftlike psychoanalysis, wpufdfosterthe
recognition that when the subject speaks, she eaa sever
speak in her own name in the sense of prodeeing a parsons?
statement Instead, there are no individual statements and it
is rather "when the indivstesi opens up to the mtrffipliefSies
pervading him or her, at the outcome of the most severe
operation of depersonalizatiea, that he or she acquires his
or her true proper name* {ATI* 37h While psychoanalysis
would support fte fantasy of having a private, personai self,
_ st&feaanatysfe would insist that me individual is not a
t , persott bat a series of states that unfoid ouiof a specific
rrriitea. litis process of individuation acquires its individual-
ity not trough a set of enduring attributes, but rJirowjh the
specificity of its unique unfolding. Likethe name of a disease
or a scterrtific effect {such as AiOS or the Joule or Kelvin
effects a proper name designates not a person, tat a series
of states kat are sets of partw«lar effects withfe a fteW of
potentiate, "Monotwcleosis' designates not one thing, but e
set of symptoms that converge m varying patterns over the
course of the disease; various symptoms may come and §o,
butitisnotuntila critical proportion of symptoms has disap-
peared thatvtfe can say the disease is cured 'dies Deletize'
designates not one person, but a set of effects whose rela-
tionships shift over time in interaction with the surroundmg
:
vwrfd;riwny of these effecfe^^
porfjoji must maintain continuity for the individual we cell
DeieujetG confiriuets exist, ^srsorihoodistiie resuftof the
's«fjJectiflt;3tiDfl proceedings' of ths collective assemblage
«"MMNMNI
of enunciation of a given society tin perticelar, a society tfea!
prires oetfipafeatian}. Such proceedings oblfeerste nea-
nprrnarjve ceiaiecfians in favour of those that produce
reader reoognixable subjects.ftrs thus the individual whose
statements exceed tfse scrrrts ^egutetina seFSonfcoBd is def-
erence to &e contingent connections of her own unfolding
that can acquire'hertrue properuaras'.
Gilbert Simondon, an important influence on Beieuze
and eaaaari's thinking atoutindi^duatiGB, argses that the
individual has traditionaBy been defined tr> terms of a state
of stable equifibrium. That is, the individuated being is
assumed to be m the sort af equilibrium thrt is attained in
a system whan all the possible Sransformstkins have been
achieved and no other force remains to enact any further
changes' <Gt 302J. This approach not osly excludes the
notion of becomina. from aw thinking about individuation,
but strips the individual from ine interactions with its sur-
rounding milfeo that make it what it is. Simondoo stoggests
understanding'.the individual as arelativereality - 'merely
the fesult of a phase in the being's development* - instead ¥•:
of a completed tct&ily. Thus indMdtiation coaM be viewed
as 'a partial end relative resolution manifested tn a system
that contains latent potentials andiiarijers a certain incem-
patibity with itself {61, ml the tensions arisragfrcwithe
incompatible forces of a specific phase sf development
precipitate tiie individual into its next phase of develop
ment Each phase of the system of the individual's reality is
'replete with potentials' ffii, 316). If is in part dire to the
fores of potentials in tiie process of besoming lhattfte indi-
vidual moves from one state of its being to another,
individuation entails not a synthesis that fealty brings a
being into a state of"cm&etibh, but 'rether the being
passing out of step with itself P , 314). Accoants of the
subject titet attempt to sum up ks essenfel attributes fail
to captwe the sMfting iriovemenis sf its unfolding;
271
Simorrion's accountsuggests that any individual is sseries where innon«boiKng water as virtual possibities.. Anyone
af metastatic states, no one of which captures the of these singularities only become actualized given the
essence of what that individual is. convergence of a wficie set of forces that include pro-
In ftiffewfiee and Repetition, Oelettxe develops a way cesses beyond those defining the individual at issue. The
of understanding individuals in terms of the problems vrttuettties of boiling, freezing and evaporating eonstitiite
inherent in a given process of individuation, like Simandon, part of the incompessible fieW of virtuafities that condition
he contends that examining onlyfeefinal states of equilib- the next state ihe water actually reaches. The entire field
rium in which a processresults (however we may define of the virtual must ultimately include the conditions act just
such states}, gives as an impoverished understanding of for a given process of individuation, but for aH of life since
the Individual at issue. Indivkiuei things, including a human ail the forces of fife ultimately affect one anther.
subjectcca ptffesciphicarcoiiceptr would be better under- Transitions across the multiple thresholds involved in a
stood in terihs of a self-differentiating series of states com- given process of individuation happen in infinitesimal
prising virtual potentialities as well as material forms that degrees ffiaifatt below the identities perceived in ordinary
unfold in response to the problems offife.Each state of the awareness. The psychic self and coherent body of con-
series is replete with the potential to move into any number scious awareness las weff as boiling water or a philosoph-
of other states in concert with its surrounding milieu. The ical concept), from this perspective, are the emergent
individual subject or concept, on this view, is not what effects of unstable processes in continual movement that
remains the same throughout ail the changes it undergoes, unfold over time and feat entail a field of virtual potential-
but is rather a conpnc^on of states that includes the ities as well as the determinate configurations of material
dynamic force inherent in each slate. The states of a elements.
process of individuation are not clearly defined but entati language is a crucial factor in the processes of individ-
the infintteslmat movement of elemental particles toward a uation of specific human subjects as well as of specific
limit that marks a qualitative change m an open-ended set cultures and humanity as a whole. UN any process of pro-
of particles. This limit is to virtual event or singularity that duction, linguistic activity unfolds with respect to prob-
oversees the actualization of the series; it is the problem lems. Just as material processes entail virtual singularities
insisting m die unfolding of a series of points. For example, that may or may not be actuafced{for example, the freez-
•die point on a vector Where water begins to boil (or ing or boiling points of a pot of water), so do linguistic pro-
Deleuze dies or the event of t o schijoanalyze' begins) is a cesses entail events - pure becomings expressed by
singularity. That singularity inheres in a state of non-boiling propositions - that may bs actualized in the specific state
water {at the living Oeleuze of. a thought-movement} as a of affairs to which they are attributed, but which can
virtual possibility. Although it has not yet actually mani- always be actualized in other .states of affairs. Thus tiers
fested, ft insists in that state as a potentiaiHy, a kind of are always ether states of affairs to which the event 'to
problem .that vM only be resolved when the incremental bc4j' {or to schiioanaiyze'} can be attributed Furthermore,
movements of nwltiple elements coalesce in a specific the relation °$ events can be distinguished from the rela-
way. The singularities of freezing and evaporation also tions of materialtilings.The statement'! swear!' is a dmer-

272
f%
 ertf statement when said by s child to her mother, a women
to tier lover or a witness m cottrt. Btrt according to Deletes
and Guaitari, alt the possible 'effectuations', of this state-
ment are present m one of its effectuations and these
virtual effectuations create a virtual line ef variation which;
Is 'real wiiteotrt being actaa!, and C08se$uen§y cpntinuoas
regardless of the leaps the statement makes' (ATP, 94}.
What they caS the 'abstract machine' of language is 'not
actaaf, but virtuaf-regij it has, not invariable or obligatory
rules, b« optional rules that ceaselessly vary with the vari-
ation Itself, as in a game in which each move changes the
rules*. A concrete assemblage actuafees relations that are
a function of ft* lines of somirtuaus vafiatiodcfrawn by Che
abstractmaDhioe. The assemWage negotiates variables at
this or that level of variation according to this or that
degree of daterntorttlizatipB, and determines which vari-
ables will enter kite constant relations or obey oblatory
rules and which will serve instead as a fluid wetter for vw-
atiOfl'jATP.IOOf.
An assemblage (like authors, book and world) that
opens and B»tSrp!ies connections approaches 'the living
abstract machine' fATfi 513). F*sychoanaiyste 'royally
botches fne real' because it interprets everything m
feeeping with a set of normative rules resufatino, signifi-
cance and subjects. The ceiitir^us variations in language
that are imperceptible to persons with Gomroon;sense' -
the virtual relations of events tet defy the thresfeoids of
conventional perception and thought- are Ignored vn def-
erence to the established patterns of meaning imposed by :
psychoanalysis. The virtual relations of language are as
real for Deteuze and Suattari as the relations already actu-
alized Jn specific speech acts, Concrete assemblages l&e
that of Deleuze and Suateri, A Thousand Phmatis and
world can negotiate the virtual relations'of events and
actualize conwctions Conventional asse»iMeges wowW
•HUMP!
ignore. Rather than interpret desire by representingftwith
reference to a preconceived su-ueture, schHsaftalysis
experiments with desire, actively participating m the
drawing offines,rendering previously imperceptible lines
of contimmus variation perceptible. If pursues not the
structures and relations of persons, subjects, aad interpre-
tations, out the lines 'running through §retsps as well as
individuals' (ATP, W41 Schjzoansfysis refuses to reduce
desire to the connections established vis-a>vss persons
and the phaMus, and instead experiments with the lines of
coijtiifHKSis variation that are above and below the thresh-
olds of perception and representational thought where the
boundaries detailing the identities of persons and things
are snaBibfguoos. Theoriz1n§, like ether processes, can
remain trapped in repetitive patterns or create new pat-
terns in flow with the contingencies cf Ihougbt-movements
In Aetr specific; ntiffeas. Deleme and Sttattari expect that
the concepts of schizeanalysis will creatively evolve in dif-
ferent contexts and tfest these concepts will have unpre-
dictable effects in the mdrviddatisn processes cf the
human subjects and cultures in which they emerge.
Although fteleazs a nd Gttattari da not ase the term
'assemblage* in A&ti-OQ$ptts, lb this esrirer wocfi they
characterize human beings as arifoldinf processes of sidi-
vidaation in constant afteraction wifft their surroundings,
and refuse tfee psychoanalyic notion ttrat such ifiterac-
tionssboufd be referred toesdrpaf positions. They describe
burnan subjectivity in terms of shree syntheses of the
anconscfous; connective syntheses that join elements Into
series f desiring-machines'}, disjunctive syntheses that
resonate series in metastasis states {'bodies without
organs'), and conjunctive synthesestot gather metastable
states into the continuous experience of conscious aware-
ness. Beteuze and Guattari agree with the psychoanalytic
account that the coherent bedy-lma§eand sense of self of
&t
J
a sentient subject is the result of a mostly unconscious
process that unfolds over time. They also agree that
eedipal subjectivity is one form that human sentience can
take. The syntheses they describe, however, have oedipal
and anoedipat forms,. Sebizoanajysis is designed to foster
fha laser The subject, esa iffocessof mdtvi<teation emer§*
in§ from the social field, is an inevitable co-participant in
the creation and mutation of social formations. Deleuze
arid 6uattari contend that unconscious investments «n the
social #eld take precedence over conscious investments in
persenat identity Schjzoanalysis, rafter than tracing all
desire to the positions of an oedipal triangle, wants to
attain 'tire immediate productive uncehscietis'&af affects
and Is affected by the breaks and flows of the larger social
field <AO, 98}.
Daleuze and Guatiari claim that capitalism same iirto
being when flows of predUcboh* were decoded m the form
of money-capital and flows of iabobr' were decoded m the
form of the worker Ireels sell her labourijower. Instead of
coding (or overcoding} flows of desire, thus making sure
that'no How exists that is net properly dammed up, chan-
neled, regulated', capitafism /has created an axiomatic of
abstract quantities that keeps moving further and further?'!*
the direction of the deterritoriaSzatidn of the secius' {AO,
33)> That is, capitalism's emphasis on &e absbactquantifi-
cation of money and labour (what matters is how capital
and labour circulates - not the specific forte wealth takes
or who in particular does what) encourages desire to
permute across the social field in unpredictable ways.
Capitafism as a serial formation that seeks to repficate
itself depends on oedipafoatiqn to manage Ibis tendency
toward deterritoriafizatlon, Qedipslization entails replacing
the connection of partial objects with a regime for the
pairing of people. 'Partis! objects now seem to be taken
from people, rather than from the nonpersonalflowsthat
274
pass from one person to another. The reason is that
persons are derived frorn abstract Quantities, instead of
from flows' CAO, 7tjk Onfeebody without, organs, desire is
the only subject It passes from one body to another, pro*
dacing partis} objects, creating breaks and flows, 'follow-
ing connections and appropriations &at each time destroy
the factitious unity of a possessive or proprietary ego' (AO,
72). Gedipalization makes it appear that parfial abfeefs are
possessed by a person and that it is the person who
desires. The exclusive disjisic#pns of oedipaiization desig-
nate global person 'who dp not exist prior lathe probibt- -
tsons that found them' rather than intensive states through
which the subject passes m the body withoat organs- The
designations of the exclusive disjunctions differentiate
among global persons and situate the ego vis-a-vis these,
persons {AO, W.
The axiomaties of capitalism doesnat care about p e j ^ j
serving the content of a given capftafet formation; the spe*
elite forms that places of wort? take with the concomitant :
identities of employers and employees matter much less
than that c apitaiflows,and the market flourishes. M if eap-
itaRsm is to replicate itself despite the mutating forms of
the institutions and people who manifest % it must make
sure -mat the deterritarializing flows of capital do not
imitate to the point of rendering capitalism unrecognizable
to itself. As a process of individuation, capitalism passes
beyond itself in a series of states of partial resolwtion that•';'..
contain incompatibilities and latent potentials. For the ten-
sions in these states not to rapipre this process entirely
(thus ending m capitafism's demisaL they must be resolved
from state to, state. Qedipafizatiop is useful to the replica-
tion of capitalism because by making sure desire is always \
constrained to the personalized triangle of oedipys, the j
Inherent deterrttorieilzatkm of capitalism is effectively ;
managed. Oedipal subfects maintain the innovations of

deterriroriaKzmg capital within the lightly bound parame-
ters of a personal Identity and fascial life lor the triangu-
lated eythorlty relationships thai roiiroc oerjlpus ki the
public reafcriK It is Deteuze and Guattari's contention that
tiiis is precisely the process ths! psychoanalysis would
fester and support,
Sehizoanalysis would encourage capitalism's inherent
deterritoriafeatioRto approsch and move past its iisnit and
foster the schko subject whose desire moves past the eon-
stramts of oedipalteation. Instead of referring the body to a
model of totalized body parts referred to a privileged sig-
Rifbr {the phallus}, the schizo experiences her body as a
field of multiplicities vibrating in an intensivefieldwith no
external paint of reference or culmination. According to
Oeleiize and Guatfars, oedipafization constitutes an ategiti-
mate restriction on the syntheses of the yneoosetous
beeatrse it emphasizes globalpersons fthas excluding sH
partial objects of desire), exclusive disjunctions Ithus rele-
gating the sttbject to a chronological series of moments
that cart be given a coherent narrative account}, and a seg-
regative and biufiivocaf use of the eonjanctive syntheses
ithus reducing the identity of the sabject to & coherent or
static set of one side of a set of oppositions*.
Life itself is an activity of production. Whether a
subject is eedipalized ©r not, she is a process in full partic-
ipation with life as process; the elements of her body and
psyche are In constant movement, making, disrupting and
remaking various connections.. The conscious awareness
of botiithe oetfipatssbjectandihe schso aretfieemergent
effects of myriad processes- But while the oedipai subject
is subjected to the dominant signifier of'the phallus, the
schizo is able to experience her surroundings *n terms of
partial objects ark! non-specific connections, inclusive dis-
junctions and non-segmehtary, pdyvoeaf eon3onctsprtsA
She still experiences a sense of wholeness, a sense that
o
•MM m
the various states through which she passes are experi-
enced by her. Butifee subject of her experiences is not the
global person whose identify isfixedon either one side or
the other of various oppositional divides (mate or female,
white or black), ami she designates the various pleasur-
able and psfnfei states through which she passes in terms
oftatensitiesthat are always becoming-other rather than
as attributes of an unchanging being. Because her uncon-
scious productions defy the constriction of oedipafization,
her reality is different from that of the oedipal subject her
sensations, emotions and thougfets defy oeApal categor-
ization. White the oedipal subject experiences the world m
teems of the possibilities posited by dominant rea%, the
schizo is sensitive to the singularities ami events that couW
produce alternative realities. Furthermore, giwen that the
sehizo does not come «p against the Hank wal of schizo-
phrenia, aicoboftsm or settle otherformof a failed or empty
body without organs, her prodfiction of this reaffty rever-
berates with and through the realities of Others. }••
According to Deleaze and Guattari fee unconscious %
neither symbolizes, imagines nor represents, but instead
I
engineers. DeeedipaJteatton would release desire from the %
i-
regulated channels of oedipal desire and sllow the creative
proftferatioft of desiring and social machines. E-tergy,
instead of encountering the blank wall of oedipalization, liii
wotrfd produce innovative forms 01 subjectivity with differ-
ent ways of interacting with others and the environment Vu
and new forms for collective living, ferhaps more impor-
tantly, these fresh formations weald be lived with an sates-
sity and excitement unavailable to oodrpalized subjects.
Human beings as biological processes immersed in a living '•:'• •:
world would share in the joyfully creative processes of life ill;;
that always moves onwsrd, generating new fonns in
response to the matating forces of becoming*
Schizsanalysrs creates concepts on the fly that are
u
275
meant to map experiments 'in contact with the real' rather
than to trace Interpolations according to a representation
of reafily it cannot effect 'The map doss not reproduce an
unconscious closed in upon itself; it constructs the uncon-
scious. It fosters connections between fields, the remove!
of blockages on bodies without organs, the maximum
opening of bodies without organs onto a plane of consis-
tency' {ATP, 12). The question for Deleuze and Guattari is
not whether their theory is right or wrong, but how effec-
tive it is )n fostering the creative productions of the uncon-
scious. They reject the psychoanalytic contention that the
only alternative to oedipal subjectivity is psychosis and
instead explore anoedipal flows of desire and the schizo
who is a functioning subject of such desire. Their notion of
the unconscious suggests ways of approaching its 'symp-
toms' that point to possibilities for creative transforma-
tion inevitably linked with social change. Since theory
responds to problems presented by the ongoing flow of life,
concepts cannot do life justice or help us to be ethical
unless they themselves unfold in dynamic thought-
movements, mutating as they go. In addition to refusing to
endorse the normative role of a theory that would freeze
life in keeping with a set of static categories, Deleuze and
Guattari insist that theory consider its role to be that of a
co-participant in a set of creative forces that are always
evolving.
As a process that unfofds in the writing and reading
assemblages of which it Is a part, theory effectuates state-
ments drawn from the lines of continuous variation of the
abstract machine of language. It creates s 'personal' per-
spective from the heterogeneous mix of impersonal flows
of the collective assemblage of enunciation, The events if
expresses become forces in tne unfolding processes of
human and social individuation, A theory can either parrot
dominant norms of signification and subjectiffcation or it
can actualize virtual relations of sense in keeping with vari-
ations of specific situations that defy personal identity and
conventional perception. Rather than describing more or
lass accurately a world it cannot touch, schkoanalysis
reveals a shifting, heterogeneous set of forces of which it
is & part. Deleuze and Guattarl's characterization and
enactment of schizoanalysis invites us not only to remark
the multiple connections we have to the world, but to open
ourselves to their creative becoming, Whan we attribute
events to states of affairs in deference to becomings that
defy conventional delimitations, we co-create new realities
that are in keeping with the How of life. Schizoanalysis not
only shows us a new way to do theory, it gives us a map of
contemporary life that allows us to situate individual pro-
cesses of becoming within a continually evolving social
field. Such maps tell us mors about a future toward which
we could unfold than a reality that is bound to be and, in the
process, challenge us to responsibly participate - in our
words as well as our actions- in the co-creation of a future
we can all desire.
Works sited
Dafww, QflfoS. plttemnee mi Repetition, trans, p. Psttofl, New York, 1994.
DateiRB, Gilles and Wlisc OtisttaFi, AaS-lhdims-Cspititism wrf
Sohatphrmia, trans. R. Hurley. M. Sown tmd H. I I Una. Minneapolis,
MN,ift83.C«9<tasA0.
Oeleuie, Gilles and Htm guattari, A thovsmil Plttetms: Capitalism and
Sehkophrem'ti, trans- Briun Massuml. Minneapolis, MN, (987. Owd as
m.
Simomlort,0. The Genesisof tha Individual', lr*ns. M. Caftan sntfS.
Kwinter, in Incorporations, eds Jonathan Crary and Saitford Kwjnter-
Nflw Yen*, m% 2 9 7 ~ m Cited * s 6t.
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