Source
Bencherki, Brummans and Vézy (2024), LIT-1902, pp. 1350–1357, and the abstract; read in NOTE-1484.
What was actually shown
Nothing empirical. The paper defines agency by adapting Massumi, for whom affect is “a power to affect and be affected [that] governs a transition, where a body passes from one state of capacitation to a diminished or augmented state of capacitation” (p. 1353). Agency keeps the augmenting direction only: “the affective force that governs the transition from a lesser to an augmented ability to act” (p. 1354). Its mechanism is Simondon’s, and it occurs when an individuation process incorporates “the excess action of another individuation process” (p. 1351).
The paper then argues that agents are not presupposed. “Agency happens before any becoming process can be recognized as an individual agent” (p. 1357). Identifying an agent is “an ‘agential cut’”.
One meeting is reread to show the vocabulary in use (pp. 1359–1363): an MSF representative asked to train local physicians first resists and then reorganizes how he describes MSF so that it can accept.
What this does not say
- That intentional or human agency is unreal. The paper denies it is primary, not that it occurs.
- How to tell, in advance, that an episode will augment rather than diminish ability to act. The reanalysis identifies the force after the fact, from hesitations and the eventual agreement.
- Which ability matters. Building augmentation into “agency” makes a verdict depend on a judgment of whose capacity counts. The paper does not supply one.
- That the account is distinct in its predictions from interaction analysis of the same data, which is what would promote it.
Connections
- CLAIM-355 holds the weaker form in the record’s own terms: the binding of a response can be real while its single owner is a construction.
- CLAIM-418 holds that perspectival, agential and institutional boundaries need not coincide.
- CLAIM-405 holds that an individuation relative to its criterion is not arbitrary. The paper’s perspectivism does not say what makes one cut better than another.
- Massumi’s formula. It runs both ways, toward augmented or diminished capacitation, and he denies that affect is transmitted (THEORY-1282, THEORY-1286). Restricting agency to augmentation, and the passing of excess action, are the authors’ own moves.
- The actors-as-webs view. Tsoukas and Chia’s becoming, which the paper calls a parallel, keeps reflexive human actors as its carriers (THEORY-1284).
Connections to the record’s own argument
Added 2026-10-31 by a pass connecting the readings of Bencherki, Brummans & Vézy 2024 and the works it leans on to the record’s lines. Analogies are marked as such.
Distributed agency and individuation
- ARG-047 (Rejected): the perspectivism bears on CLAIM-405, not CLAIM-418.
- TERM-086: augmentation without a named target.
- QUESTION-063: the spillover, read as coupling.
- CLAIM-430: the MSF reanalysis.
Will-organization, organizational affect and authenticity
- CLAIM-352: this is the reach side, not will-organization.
- CLAIM-354: augmentation needs a comparison the record makes partial.
- CLAIM-527.
- CLAIM-484: excess action is close to a claim that exceeds its grant.
- CLAIM-080: the supposition is denied, but the will account is not reached.