Hi Peter,
I enjoyed reading your paper too!
I have what could seem like a silly question, after having read your whole
talk. Would you explain what a 5-paragraph theme (template, rubric,
formula) is? I'm kind of guessing ...
Thanks,
- Steve
PS. Great metaphor and writing passage about rhizomes, ways of thinking,
and the nature of culture/cultivation, Peter. Here are some excerpts for
those who would like a taste of Peter's talk:
from Rethinking Rhizomes in Writing about Research:
To a gardener, rhizome is a term used to describe the ways in which
particular kinds of plants propagate; that is, how they spread or
multiply. A rhizome has a horizontal underground stem that shoots out new
roots that themselves may be separated out to start whole new plants ...
Deleuze and Guattari (1987) adapted the term rhizomatic in their postmodern
essay "A Thousand Plateaus" as a way to distinguish between human
conceptions that have clear centers and lineages and those that are
decentered and unruly. They call this first, paradigmatically dominant
conception arborescent, which from its root in the term for tree suggests
to them a strong, vertical, stiff center and linear, hierarchical,
sedentary, segmented structure, with branches divided into smaller and less
significant outgrowths as they spread upward ...
[According to this metaphor] Rhizomatic thought, in contrast to arbolic
thought, is nonlinear, nonhierarchical, decentered, horizontal, and
possessed with other qualities antithetical to the dominant paradigm. It
may move in many directions, like rhizomes themselves; the propagated
division may grow just as lustily as the original root, and perhaps more so
if more carefully cultivated. A rhizomatic idea, argue Deleuze and Guattari
(1987), "ceaselessly establishes connections between semiotic chains,
organizations of power, and circumstances relative to the arts, sciences,
and social struggles" (p. 7).
[Peter continues] Speaking as a gardener, I would argue that these
connections don't simply happen but are cultivated. An iris, for instance,
cannot have its rhizome immersed in water for more than 24 hours or it will
begin to rot at the root. A sun-loving plant, whether arbolic or
rhizomatic, will grow poorly in the shade. Phlox that thrive in the arid
southwest succumb to mildew in the humid southeast. In other words, if I
may borrow a favorite phrase from poststructuralism, the metaphor begs for
considerable troubling in order to be useful in the social sciences or
humanities. That troubling begins for me with a term common to both
gardeners and social science researchers, culture. How individuals and
related individuals grow in a particular setting or medium is a consequence
of the conditions that mediate their development. And so simply being
rhizomatic, I would argue, is not sufficient; for both plants and people,
an environment of appropriate fertility must provide the setting of
development.
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