Against the background of the French "May Wave" and the postmodernist, the theory of assemblage as a research perspective starts to gain momentum. This paper proposes a philosophical view of "becoming" based on rhizome thinking, which critically exposes ignorance of the spatial topology in the current research based on network structure and opens up a new field of the knowledge for human geography. On the one hand, the assemblage theory forms a "heterogeneous generated space" on the basis of spatial theories such as "spatial production theory", "heterotopia" and "third space", emphasizing the interactions of the heterogeneous elements while also paying attention to the logic of the continuous generation and spatio-temporal change; on the other hand, the assemblage theory reconstructs the concept of relations, emphasizes the "object agency" and "relations of exteriority", which generates the "post-relational ontology" and acknowledges that all things are assembled through relations. With the application of the assemblage theory in the field of human geography, the existing empirical research mainly focuses on political assemblage and mobility, urban assemblage and critical urbanism, daily life assemblage and non-human agency, and compared with other related theories such as Complexity Theory and Actor Network Theory. In order to expound the connotation of the assemblage theory and enhance the applicability of the theory, the article analyzes the assemblage logic through border assemblage. In addition, based on the new research framework and theoretical paradigm constructed by the assemblage theory for human geography, as well as the coupling of the theoretical characteristics and the transitional period of Chinese society, it is expected that Chinese geographers can critically engage into the assemblage theory to explain the Chinese situation, as well as promoting the diversities of the Chinese geography theory and philosophical methodology. © 2022, Science Press. All right reserved.
