Overview:
In media theory, rhizome is an evolving term that stems from the theories of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. It has been offered as an explanatory framework for network (both human and machine) theory and hypertext, although a strict reading of Deleuze and Guattari does not support these interpretations. Their rhizome is non-hierarchical, heterogeneous, multiplicitous, and acentered. The term has been applied broadly outside of media theory, as Deleuze and Guattari intended.
Origins of the Rhizome:
The word rhizome originates in botany, and for many people the most common rhizomes encountered that follow such a definition are pieces of ginger1 seen in the produce section of a local supermarket, or irises2 planted in a garden. The Oxford English Dictionary defines rhizome as "a prostrate or subterranean root-like stem emitting roots and usually producing leaves at its apex; a rootstock."3 The OED dates rhizome from the middle of the 19th century; it is derived from a Greek word meaning "to take root." Rhizome's entry into the world of theory began with the psychologist Carl Jung. His introduction to Memories, Dreams, Reflections includes the following reference to rhizome: "Life has always seemed to me like a plant that lives on its rhizome. Its true life is invisible, hidden in the rhizome. The part that appears above the ground lasts only a single summer. Then it withers away-an ephemeral apparition. When we think of the unending growth and decay of life and civilizations, we cannot escape the impression of absolute nullity. Yet I have never lost the sense of something that lives and endures beneath the eternal flux. What we see is blossom, which passes. The rhizome remains."4 Though Jung paved the way with this quote, the figures responsible for rhizome as a term in media theory are French philosopher Gilles Deleuze (inspired by Jung) and clinical psychoanalyst FŽlix Guattari, who together developed an ontology based on the rhizome in works such as Rhizome: Introduction (1976) and A Thousand Plateaus (1980). In the latter volume, Deleuze and Guattari begin the discussion of rhizome with an expansion of its traditional botanical one, noting that "even some animals are [rhizomes], in their pack form. Rats are rhizomes. Burrows are too, in all their functions of shelter, supply, movement, evasion, and breakout."5 Deleuze and Gauttari arrive at the rhizome by way of analyzing the book. They describe the book, and any work of literature in general, as an assemblage, and set out to discuss what sorts of assemblages are possible. The first type is the "root-book," meaning a mode of thought associated with the tree. The tree image is Deleuze and Guattari's chief contrast against the rhizome, and much about the rhizome can be understood through this opposition. The tree plainly represents a hierarchy, but it also refers to binary systems, because every new branch ties back in some essential way to the root that makes all growth possible. Thus, 0/1, +/-, and Y/N are all "tree" structures, as is a traditional hierarchy like this: