morphic, when they live in packs like rats. Burrows are rhizomorphic in all
their functions: as habitat, means of provision, movement, evasion, rupture.^32The key words in this playful statement are: ëmovementí, ëevasioní
and ëruptureí. The rhizome becomes politicized in the argument as a
network which branches off into infinity, continually moving, refusing
the monolithic or the static, substituting binary structures with
multiplicity and pluralism.
On the one hand, Deleuze and Guattari argue that there are more
rooted sorts of conception as with the image of the tree of Western
knowledge or the search for certainties that informs Descartes in
Discours de la MÈthode (1637) and Meditations (1641). These forms
of thought provide a Leibnitzian monadology or foundational
philosophy.^33 On the other hand, the rhizome is anti-foundational as it
branches out in all directions with neither beginning nor end. In
ëTreatise on Nomadologyí, Deleuze and Guattari make alignments
between the rhizome and a nomadicity which works against Cartesian
thought with liberating potential:^34 ëThere are no points or positions in
a rhizome, as one finds in a structure, tree or roots. There are only
linesí.^35 The rhizome refuses to put down roots, to ground repre-
sentation or to find a transcendental signifier, end-point or telos.
Importantly, Deleuze and Guattari note that any line of flight or move
towards deterritorialization is made within not outside representation:
ëThe line of flight is part of the rhizome.í^36 In this way, the rhizome
provides a metaphor for post-colonial decolonization.
Examining decolonization, Deleuze and Guattari attack the
binaries, dualisms and centralisms of Cartesian philosophy as they
notice how ëWestern realityí relies on root foundations, promoting a
false sense of unity in the face of fragmentation. Here it is useful to
note how they essentialize Western reality in order to come to this
conclusion. Suggesting that identity is fractured rather than unified,
32 Ibid., On The Line, p.10.
33 RenÈ Descartes (1596ñ1650), Discourse on Method and Meditations (London:
Penguin, 1968).
34 Deleuze & Guattari, ë1227: Treatise on Nomadology: ñThe War Machineí, A
Thousand Plateaus (London: Athlone, 1988, 1996), pp.351ñ423.
35 Deleuze & Guattari, On the Line, p.15.
36 Ibid., p.18.