Point I:
The question concerning the new has so many different layers. What I find interesting is less the new in the sense of trendy or of being relevant (that is largely a social function, no?). Rather, it is the idea of a philosophy of modernity. The condition of the possibility of the philosophy of modernity is that something emphatically new has happened which changed the world in an epochal way. Almost always the argument is that “our” time escapes the ways we have ordered the world so far in some substantial way (because of “new” dangers, because of “new” knowledge, because of “new” disillusionments, etc.).
All of these arguments – the endless “we have run out of ground” song – assume that in the past all there was, was firm ground. Thereby they introduces all kinds of great divides.
I always thought that we need to anthropologize this attitude – this form.

Point II:
But, of course, we anthropologists are also somehow modern, at least in ethos. Hence we are part of the problem. And this is a challenge.
So far the most promising way of dealing with this challenge has been, I think, Marking Time, which introduces a shift from “the new” to difference or motion (sort of the tentative culmination point of a trajectory that lead PR from the Anthropology of Modernity, to the Anthropology of Reason, to the Anthropology of the Contemporary).
The question, or so my reading of MT goes, is less the emphatically new (by which I mean new in the sense of the philosophy of history, which essentially has been a philosophy of modernity). Rather, the focus is on motion, on different dynamics. Such motion is introduced in an existing (already slightly moving) field by fairly mundane things (no deeper meaning). Say a new institution is founded (like the Gates Foundation) that introduces a different dynamic in an existing field (international health).
In a certain way I am inclined to think that one should avoid treating such changes as “ontological events.” Isn’t the phrase “historical ontology” a bit unfortunate? Is the world in its being really changing because we can know, modify, order things in a new way?
Example I: Is the brain really changing simply because we now know that new neurons are being born in the adult? Is the world really changing because nanotechnology is now around?
Nothing epochal here, we used to say! That also would imply a certain departure of the idea of epistemological ruptures.

Point III:
I am aware that the term assemblage is so ubiquitous that it is not of immediate analytical significance. And yet…the term is quite helpful when it comes to the task of anthropolozing “the new.” Whatever phenomenon one is interested in – it can almost always be described as an assemblage of various elements (some older, some younger, others most recent). Most often – or so I think – “the new” is little more than a mutation of such an assemblage of elements. Say a new element is added – new in the non-emphatic, non-history of philosophy sense – with the consequence that the form/design of the assemblage changes. Elements that were formerly central are becoming more marginal, elements that were marginal perhaps totally irrelevant – or super central, etc.
Example I: The current Global Health movement builds on many elements that have been around for a fairly long time. To just mention a few: Human rights, national public health programs, the WHO, the World Bank, NGOs, etc. And yet, the Gates Foundation – or The Global Fund – has arguable introduced a new dynamic in this field. Many of the formerly central institutions have become more marginal; others that were so marginal that they almost were invisible (philanthropy) are now central, etc.
Example II: The Gates Foundation, one could say, has assembled elements that were around for a long time but that have hitherto not really been connected to the world of humanitarianism – for example, molecular biomedicine, a R&D logic, managerial skills, etc.
So is Global Health new? The question seems rather meaningless. In any case, it is analytically not challenging because it is not subtle enough.

Regarding the question, can you hear me now?, I am reminded of a question from the audience during Paul’s National Academies’ Keck talk. The question was whether the conceptual approach being taken was not general rather than specific to the novelty of syntheticbiology. The materials are specific but the point and the measure is meant to be more general, no news there for the folks who came together to form ARC originally.

It seems that to take any change up in a mode that poses the question of significance demands, in one way that you pay attention to the objects that are supposedly new, but that your measure of significance is not determined by those objects. In that sense I would argue that novelty should not function as the problem or concept but is the referent in relation to which they are formed.

let’s continue this….