{"title":"The “Flatness” of Deleuze and Guattari: Planning the City as a Tree or as a Rhizome?","authors":"J. Hillier","doi":"10.1080/02513625.2021.1981008","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Flat ontology has become an umbrella term for several theoretically based approaches, notably Delanda’s controversial reconstruction of DeleuzoGuattarian concepts. I highlight key divergences in Delanda’s “flat ontology” from that of Deleuze and Guattari’s “flattening” of multiplicities on a plane of immanence. The rhizome is arguably the concrete image of Deleuze and Guattari’s multiplicity, constituted by intensive relations, or becomngs, between heterogeneous singularities. A rhizomatic multiplicity contrasts markedly with the hierarchical dualism of the pseudomultiplicities of arborescent structures. Referencing Marston et al.’s “flat” site-ontology, I introduce sites as DeleuzoGuattarian eventspaces; emergent properties of entangled human and non-human relations and their capacities to affect and be affected. I select two spatial planning sites from urban fringe Australia, both of which involve significant transformation of (semi-)riparian habitat. One illustrates an arborescent system of thought and practice and the other a more rhizomatic approach which explores the situational potential of human/non-human encounters. I explore capacities of both sites to affect humans and non-humans and how the respective planning systems engage with them. I then question the possibility of rhizomatic planning practices, whether arborescence is inevitable, or whether a double-structure is possible, before concluding that a double-structure may afford glimpses of the bi-directionality or “flattening” of DeleuzoGuattarian multiplicity – “both/and” – an inclusive disjunctive synthesis of becoming.","PeriodicalId":379677,"journal":{"name":"disP - The Planning Review","volume":"322 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2021-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"4","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"disP - The Planning Review","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02513625.2021.1981008","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 4
Abstract
Abstract Flat ontology has become an umbrella term for several theoretically based approaches, notably Delanda’s controversial reconstruction of DeleuzoGuattarian concepts. I highlight key divergences in Delanda’s “flat ontology” from that of Deleuze and Guattari’s “flattening” of multiplicities on a plane of immanence. The rhizome is arguably the concrete image of Deleuze and Guattari’s multiplicity, constituted by intensive relations, or becomngs, between heterogeneous singularities. A rhizomatic multiplicity contrasts markedly with the hierarchical dualism of the pseudomultiplicities of arborescent structures. Referencing Marston et al.’s “flat” site-ontology, I introduce sites as DeleuzoGuattarian eventspaces; emergent properties of entangled human and non-human relations and their capacities to affect and be affected. I select two spatial planning sites from urban fringe Australia, both of which involve significant transformation of (semi-)riparian habitat. One illustrates an arborescent system of thought and practice and the other a more rhizomatic approach which explores the situational potential of human/non-human encounters. I explore capacities of both sites to affect humans and non-humans and how the respective planning systems engage with them. I then question the possibility of rhizomatic planning practices, whether arborescence is inevitable, or whether a double-structure is possible, before concluding that a double-structure may afford glimpses of the bi-directionality or “flattening” of DeleuzoGuattarian multiplicity – “both/and” – an inclusive disjunctive synthesis of becoming.