At the critical moment: The rhizomatic organization and “Democracy to Come”

Abstract

In the field of Organization Studies (OS), there has been strong interest in the use of the metaphor of rhizomes as developed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. The merit of the rhizome metaphor is that it offers strong explanatory power in capturing the chaotic, unpredictable, and uncontrollable nature of organizations, which problematizes a managerial reading of organizational process that is often preoccupied with the managerial goals of performance, efficiency, and effectiveness. In the past two decades, with the development of the internet and social media, the concept of rhizome has been concretized as an organizational ontology but, ironically, we have witnessed that the features of rhizome may selectively be employed and developed into a military tactic, to serve a totalitarian interest of control. For instance, the idea of rhizome manoeuvre has widely been adopted by (terrorist) organizations that seek to justify the act of violence. This paper seeks to defend the rhizome and its emancipatory potential but suggests that the use of rhizome must have its provisional boundary. To substantiate this argument, the author conducted an ethnographical study in a social movement organization. The idea of a provisional boundary is in line with Deleuze and Guattari's view of provisional dualism. In this regard, the author suggests that rhizomatic organizations and their actions should be grounded in Deleuze and Guattari's philosophical framework of "democracy-to-come", embedded in Bergson's open society. With the help of the empirical data, this paper identifies some tentative principles to inform the actions of rhizomatic organizations.