The shadow of the rhizome: A challenge to academic thinking 

For decades, academic thinking has embraced the rhizome as a model for everything from resistance movements to digital networks.  

The theory, articulated by articulated by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in A Thousand Plateaus in 1980, serves as a beacon for those seeking non-hierarchical, decentralised, and dynamic modes of thought and organisation.  

The rhizome is a plant that is simultaneously a root. Think of ginger and bamboo growing unpredictably, resisting central control, and redefining what it means to be connected. In a world governed by rigid structures and entrenched hierarchical power that protects an elite few, the subterranean rhizome seemed like something anarchic, earthy and fertile. 

But since October 7, 2023, I have come to realise rhizomatic thought has a long, deep, dark shadow. 

I was once a devotee of the rhizome. I wrote about its power to disrupt patriarchal epistemologies, to contest the monocultural narratives imposed by nation-states, and to foster multiplicities in art, politics and identity. Like many in the academic and activist circles I moved in, I embraced the rhizome as a model of emancipation, particularly from human-centric dominion over nature. I was congratulated and even funded for doing so.