Despite the applicability of assemblage theory to extreme events, the relational ontology that assemblage thinkers employ makes it hard to ground the potential of artefacts to undergo substantial change. To better understand how artefacts can be unexpectedly destroyed, and thereby catch managers by surprise, this article draws on Graham Harman’s object-oriented ontology. This approach is used to explain how artefacts, as concrete objects, have the capacity both to cause and to exacerbate calamities. By contrast, assemblage theory is shown to provide insight into post-disaster organizing dilemmas. An analysis of artefact-based surprise at a disaster-prone New Zealand port illustrates the complementarity of the two approaches. Minimizing surprise was a major impetus behind attempts by port managers to make sizeable artefacts more disaster resilient. Yet there are limits to this process that stem from a gap revealed by the philosophical distinction between an artefact’s design plan and its maximum plan. Object-based surprise at the port also sparked tension between the competing imperatives of centralization and decentralization in post-disaster recovery. How this problem played out at the grassroots level is best explained, however, in assemblage-theoretic terms.

中文翻译：

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灾难期间的人工制品、惊喜和管理：面向对象的本体论和组合理论见解

尽管组合理论适用于极端事件，但组合思想家采用的关系本体论使得很难确定人工制品发生实质性变化的潜力。为了更好地理解人工制品如何被意外破坏，从而使管理人员措手不及，本文借鉴了 Graham Harman 的面向对象本体论。这种方法用于解释作为具体物体的人工制品如何具有引起和加剧灾难的能力。相比之下，组装理论被证明可以提供对灾后组织困境的洞察力。对易受灾害影响的新西兰港口基于人工制品的意外的分析说明了这两种方法的互补性。最大限度地减少意外是港口管理人员试图使大型文物更具抗灾能力的主要推动力。然而，由于人工制品的设计计划与其最大计划之间的哲学区别所揭示的差距，该过程存在局限性。港口的基于对象的意外也引发了灾后恢复中集中和分散的竞争要求之间的紧张关系。然而，这个问题在基层是如何发生的，最好用组合理论的术语来解释。