expand_less In social theory, Deluse and Delanda direct our attention to the way societies are actually structured as multi-layered, overlapping groups functioning between and across scales. They resist theories of emergent reality assigned to component assemblages or the whole systems they compose. Cybernetic or autopoetic systems are likewise multi-layered assemblages of overlapping components, themselves heterogeneous assemblages.
Overlap is another way of saying connection. Though connections can be represented in diagrams and tracked as bits of data that can be processed and re-represented in many ways, the deeper reality always will have much more that can never be fully represented. A person as well as a smart phone, or a car or an airplane has an existance beyond any of these connections, overlaps and representations. Although the individuals and components only get their identities as individuals from the role(s) they play in different purposeful assemblagas, they don't disappear from the world when those purposeful assemblages no longer find sufficient use. Or looked at another way, the same components can serve many purposes. What is the purpose of a warriror and their assemblage into armies? What is the purpose of government? What can an operator and a bull-dozer do? It can knock down homes or build needed infrastructure.
The subject matter of assemblage theory becomes the whole of material culture and what history we have been able to piece together.