The rhizome and the tree: changing metaphors for information organisation

Abstract

Citation: Robinson, L. & Maguire, M. (2010). The rhizome and the tree: changing metaphors for information organisation. Journal of Documentation, 66(4), pp. 604-613. doi: 10.1108/00220411011052975 This is the draft version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent Methodology Critical review of selected literature FindingsThe rhizome concept is a promising model for understanding hyperlinked information services. It may be of practical value, particularly if it can be integrated with more traditional forms of information organisation. More research, conceptual and practical, is needed before this can be achieved. Research limitationsThe literature review is not comprehensive, and the conclusions are open-ended. Originality/valueThis is the only paper to review the rhizome concept in this way.

Images of Thought and Their Relation to Classification: The Tree and the Net

“…The tree-net distinction still provokes heated debates. Explicitly or not, it features in a number of major issues of our contemporary culture, library and information science included (Robinson and Maguire 2010).…”

‘Far isn’t far’: Shetland on the internet

“…Those representations were underpinned by an assumption that Shetland life could be categorised within certain narratives. As has been frequently proposed (see Robinson and Maguire 2010), the internet epitomises Deleuze and Guattari's rhizome (Deleuze and Guattari 2011, 3-28): a framework in which knowledge is explored and constructed through connections, rather than categories. Consequently, structured or binary classifications have becomes things to be contested, not relied upon.…”

A thousand TV shows : applying a rhizomatic lens to television genres

“…Scholars (e.g. Fernandez, 2001;Ibrahim, 2014;Riddle, 2013;Robinson & Maguire, 2010) have applied this usage to other interconnected media, but none have done so to the degree I intend.…”

“…However, the heart of Deleuze and Guattari's analysis is "an attempt to think through fragments" (Zayani, 2000, p. 97) and that uniting of fragments, in the rhizome, persists with little criticism. Indeed, numerous scholars have repurposed this conceptualization of the rhizome over the years for multiple purposes (eg., Eco, 2014;Fernandez, 2001;Ibrahim, 2014;Riddle, 2013;Robinson & Maguire, 2010). For instance, Riddle (2013) looks at how typical understandings of "youth," as "over-coded categories such as age, race, class, gender and sexuality" (pg.…”

“…Instead, he conceptualizes youth as a rhizome, because of how it allows an "unbounding [of] the subject from subjectivity, unlinking [of] the self from traditional categories" (p 46). Robinson and Maguire (2010) suggest that rhizomes could work as a model for the organization of information, because of their "seemingly clear relevance to a networked hypertextual environment" (p. 607-608). Fernandez (2001) observes the necessity of "a completely new understanding of literacy as a complex and constantly evolving skill, embedded in interwoven sets of knowledges, deployed in innumerable settings, and using existing and yet-to-be-invented technologies" (p. 9).…”