Veritable inventions: cities, policies and assemblage

The purpose of this paper is to explore the notion of assemblage and how I have deployed it in my work on urban policy mobilities and harm-reduction drug policy. My research entails the detailed tracing of flows of policy knowledge among cities around the world. In detailing and conceptualising these circulations, I am interested in how they are actively and purposively assembled and negotiated in place in productive ways. The paper uses the case of harm reduction – a public health approach to the governance of illicit drug use – as a frame within which to discuss the benefits of assemblage in the study of urban policy-making, urban politics and global–urban connections.