Ian Rowen — Radicals, Regionals & Rhizomes: Towards a Transformational Geography of Burning Man

Burning Man has always been difficult to describe and direct. ‘That Thing in the Desert’ may still be the most precise term ever applied to Black Rock City. With the mushrooming of regional events across the globe, ‘That Thing’ has mutated and multiplied beyond its Black Rock bounds. The metaphors of ‘region’ and ‘network’ are a vital part of Burning Man’s past and present. However, manifestations of Burning Man are now everywhere, whether or not they receive official legitimation as parts of the ‘Regional Network’. While still salient, the spatial imaginaries of ‘region’ and ‘network’ deserve augmentation to account for the complexity of the present. This paper, based on long-term participant-observation, thinks of, with, and for Burning Man towards a transformational geography beyond regions and networks. Drawing conceptual inspiration from assemblage thinking, it presents the ‘global rhizome’ as an analytic for apprehending the emergent topology of a globalizing Burning Man. This radical reconceptualization aims both to stimulate scholarship and inform the theory and practice of event participants and community members.