Feely, M. (2020). Assemblage analysis: An experimental new-materialist method for analysing narrative data. Qualitative Research, 20(2), 174–193. doi:10.1177/1468794119830641

Feely draws on Deleuzian ontology, in which reality consists of material entities and discursive statements that interact to mutually affect each other and the world around them, arguing that this overcomes the limitations imposed by a purely discursive (language-based) analysis. Within this ontology, heterogeneous components work together to create many possible (fluid) assemblages. Feely then selected one assemblage (within the world of services for those with an intellectual disability, the sexual surveillance of clients) for analysis, to understand how its elements worked together to produce a way of functioning within the service. Based on this understanding, he then describes a three-step approach to analysis of, in his case, narrative data.