“Networks are not just an omnipresent structure but also a symbol of autonomy, flexibility, collaboration, diversity, and multiplicity. As nonhierarchical models, networks are embedded with processes of democratization that stimulate individuality and our appetites for learning, evolving, and communication. They are, in essence, the fabric of life” (Lima 2011, p. 69).
Trees have been common and potent symbols across cultures and across time. They represent life, well-being and knowledge. However, as some modern day theorists have argued, they also represent centralization, finalism and essentialism (Lima 2011). Their hierarchical structure leaves little room for the complexities of modern day relationships – between species, between ideas, between people and the spaces they occupy. Thus, the philosophers Deleuze and Guatarri (1972) suggest instead the concept of the rhizome. In sticking with a natural theme, rhizomes are the underground stems of plants. They grow multiple shoots that can reach off in many directions, connecting them to other parts of ecosystem. “There are no points or positions in a rhizome, such as those found in a structure, tree or root. There are only lines” (Deleuze & Guatarri 1987, p. 9). In seeing today’s complex world as a rhizome, we understand the multiple networks in which everything is dynamically connected, as opposed to the hierarchical structure in which everything has its due place.
This conversation of networks, while very philosophical, can be useful to anthropologists. In looking at our world as a complex and interconnected network, as opposed to a rigid and pre-determined structure, we can understand the diversity of ways people (and other species) act and inhabit the world. In today’s world of increasing globalization we must think of life as a democratic network and not a hierarchical structure.
If you are interested in these ideas, I suggest watching Manuel Lima’s youtube video “The Power of Networks.”
References:
Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. 1987. A Thousand Plateaus. B. Massumi (trans.). Minneapolis, MN: Univ. of Minnesota Press.
Lima, M. 2011. Visual Complexity: Mapping Patterns of Information. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Architectural Press.
The Edited Jottings of an Amateur Anthropologist 