Root-identity and rhizome-identity: thinking about the challenges of cultural identity with Martinican philosopher Édouard Glissant

Abstract

This article takes as its starting point the political issues surrounding the concept of
cultural identity in France, with particular attention to the polemic of Islamo-leftism and the
reception of decolonial studies in the 2020s. The purpose is to show that the concepts of root-
identity and rhizome-identity allow, on the one hand, to diagnose the trivialization of a
conservative identity politics and, on the other hand, to propose a new paradigm for thinking
contemporary identities, namely an open, relational and reticular identity, resulting from a
constant process of creolization. After a brief introduction to Glissant's work, we will focus on
the root/rhizome distinction elaborated by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, as well as on the
critique of Western thought it entails. In the last part, we will further explain our interpretation
of Édouard Glissant's thinking on identity, applying it to the specific case of the creation in
2007 of a Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Co-development,
denounced by Patrick Chamoiseau and Édouard Glissant as the paradigmatic example of root-
identity.