Slides for a talk titled "If Fanon Had Facebook: Digital Postcolonial Knowledge and the Rhizome", given at University of Wisconsin, March 2015.

1. @adelinekoh #uwdh
I F FA N O N H A D FA C E B O O K
D I G I TA L P O S T C O L O N I A L K N O W L E D G E & T H E R H I Z O M E
A D E L I N E K O H , S T O C K T O N U N I V E R S I T Y @ A D E L I N E K O H # U W D H
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2. FA N O N / FA C E B O O K
D I G I TA L E C O L O G I E S
P O S T C O L O N I A L K N O W L E D G E
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3. N E T W O R K S , R H I Z O M E S , A L G O R I T H M S
P O S T C O L O N I A L D I G I TA L K N O W L E D G E
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4. C R I T I Q U E S
• “clicktivism”/“slactivism”
• “weak ties”
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5. B U T
• Occupy Wall Street
• The Arab Spring
• #SolidarityisforWhiteWomen
• #Trayvon
• #Ferguson
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6. S O C I A L M E D I A
G N O S I S
R H I Z O M E
D E L E U Z E & G U AT TA R I
Postcolonial scholars should intervene in the
digital sphere
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7. I N C L U D E S : M O R E C O M P L E X L E S S U T O P I A N
P E R S P E C T I V E S O N S O C I A L M E D I A
I N T E G R AT I O N W I T H T H E R H I Z O M AT I C S T R U C T U R E O F
K N O W L E D G E O U T L I N E D H E R E
Longer version of talk
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8. P Y R A M I D , N E T W O R K , R H I Z O M E
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9. 9
Knowledge
Filtered by
experts
Print
Knowledge
How Print Knowledge Works

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11. M A K I N G K N O W L E D G E P U B L I C
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12. D E C E N T R A L I Z E D K N O W L E D G E
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13. D E C E N T R A L I Z E D K N O W L E D G E
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14. A G A I N S T E X P E R T I S E
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15. D E C L I N E O F T H E M E D I A ,
R I S E O F C I T I Z E N J O U R N A L I S M
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16. D E C L I N E O F T R A D I T I O N A L M E D I A
• Mainstream journalists “taken in” by viral photographs
and news that are fake
• Rise of citizen journalism, quickest access to news
• Underreporting of events in mainstream meadia that
don’t align with big business interests
(#OccupyWallStreet, #Ferguson)
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17. C H A N G E I N K N O W L E D G E P R O D U C T I O N
• Networked, not silo-ed
• New academia: sharing knowledge before “finished”
• Knowledge-in-process
• #WritingInPublic—Michelle Moravec http://
michellemoravec.com/michelle-moravec/
• Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Planned Obsolescence, Shakespeare
Quarterly, #postmedevial, Hybrid Pedagogy
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18. D E L E U Z E A N D G U AT TA R I , A T H O U S A N D P L AT E A U S
Networks and Rhizomes
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19. • Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus
“… any point of a rhizome can be connected to anything other, and must
be. This is very different from the tree or a root, which plots a point,
fixes an order. The linguistic tree on the Chomsky model still begins at a
point S and proceeds by dichotomy. In contrast… not every train in a
rhizome is necessarily linked to a linguistic feature: semiotic chains of
every nature are connected to very diverse modes of coding that bring
into play not only different regimes of signs but also states of things of
differing status.”
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20. A S S E M B L A G E S
• For D&G, Print book as tyrannical structure of Hegelian
dialectic
• Versus “assemblages”:
• There is no longer a tripartite division between a field of
reality (the world) and a field of representation (the book)
and a field of subjectivity (the author). Rather, an
assemblage establishes connections between certain
multiplicities drawn from each of these orders, so that a
book has no sequel nor the world as its object nor one or
several authors as its subject.”
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21. P O S T C O L O N I A L K N O W L E D G E A S
R H I Z O M AT I C
• Crowds vs Experts
• Many points of entry, exit and connection
• Chaos of the Internet/Divergent Thought
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22. F U R T H E R
E X P L O R AT I O N S
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23. F I N A L LY
• Problems of algorithms and gatekeeping
• Potential of the web/rhizomatic structures
• cautioned use of proprietary algorithms
• New arena—from colonial library of print to the
networked public sphere
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