Deleuze and Guattari and the Concept of Agency: Contributions to the Notions of Structuration, Chaotization, and Poetic Subjectivation

Abstract

The aim of this article is to present contributions from the philosophy of difference to our understanding of the relationships between chaos, structure, and the subject. To this end, we will highlight the concept of agency from the perspective of Deleuze and Guattari. In agency, the subject and structure lose their central, genetic, universal, and causal character and become “pieces” of a collective, unstable, and emergent functioning. Agency is the co-functioning of multiplicities that couple heterogeneous machines, semiotics, and subjectivations, which are constantly set in motion by the action of chaos. For the philosophy of difference, what matters are the singular processes produced within agencies, rather than a supposed universal common structure. In this framework, subject, structure, and chaos are possible variables of agency. This means that they vary between products and producers in accordance with the functioning of the agency. In this sense, to understand the product-producer dynamics of agents, we suggest three extreme types of agency: structuring, chaoticizing, and poetic subjectivation. In the first, we find a predominance of structurations that differentiate themselves to preserve their territory. In the second, we find the dominance of chaotic action that deterritorializes both structurations and subjectivations. In the third, we find the process of poetic subjectivation in which, due to the flexible conditions of agency, singular machinations, expressions, and existences are produced within the agency.