Introduction

In their discourse-theoretical work, Laclau and Mouffe explicitly validate the material, for instance, when they write that ‘the discursive character of an object does not, by any means, imply putting its existence into question’ (Laclau and Mouffe, 1987: 82, emphasis in original). This does not mean that the material is strongly present in their work. Arguably, more can be done to make the material visible in relation to discourse theory. This chapter aims to contribute to the enrichment of Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory by combining and cross-fertilising it with new materialist approaches. Discourse theory remains the starting point of this enrichment operation, though, which is why the chapter starts with a discussion on the role the material plays in discourse theory, in order to then argue for a more extensive role for the material. This cross-fertilisation of the discursive and the material is labelled the discursive-material knot, to capture and emphasise the idea that the relationship is non-hierarchical. This strategy is, in other words, aimed at preventing one of the two components from gaining the upper hand. In order to achieve this objective, the chapter will turn to the notion of the assemblage, but also two less commonly used concepts – the invitation and the investment – will be introduced.

It important to emphasise, even in the introduction, that the discourse-theoretical and the new materialist approaches both validate the material and the discursive, respectively, even if they do not develop their theoretical reflections on this ‘other’ component as much as they could have done. The post-Marxist agenda in Laclau and Mouffe’s work is only one example.

In Hegemony and socialist strategy (hereafter HSS), Laclau and Mouffe aim to decentre the notion of class, a position that Wood ([1986] 1999: 4) has called the ‘declassing of the socialist project’, but which is better labelled as the de-essentialisation of class, where also the discursive nature of class is acknowledged and the creation of a chain of equivalence between different democratic struggles is proposed, without ignoring the main thrust of the socialist project. Laclau and Mouffe (1985: 192) describe this position in the following words: