Knowledge (XXG)

The Practice of Everyday Life

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124:, de Certeau outlines an important critical distinction between strategies and tactics in this battle of repression and expression. According to him, strategies are used by those within organizational power structures, whether small or large, such as the state or municipality, the corporation or the proprietor, a scientific enterprise or the scientist. Strategies are deployed against some external entity to institute a set of relations for official or proper ends, whether adversaries, competitors, clients, customers, or simply subjects. Tactics, on the other hand, are employed by those who are subjugated. By their very nature tactics are defensive and opportunistic, used in more limited ways and seized momentarily within spaces, both physical and psychological, produced and governed by more powerful strategic relations. 112:
of governments, corporations, and other institutional bodies who produce things like maps that describe the city as a unified whole. De Certeau uses the vantage from the World Trade Center in New York to illustrate the idea of a panoptic, unified view. By contrast, the walker at street level moves in ways that are tactical and never fully determined by the plans of organizing bodies, taking shortcuts in spite of the strategic grid of the streets. This concretely illustrates de Certeau's argument that everyday life works by a process of poaching on the territory of others, using the rules and products that already exist in culture in a way that is influenced, but never wholly determined, by those rules and products.
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and generate relations with targeted individuals, or "consumers", who consequently enact "tactics" in order to unsettle or diverge from the prescribed conventions of such environments. In the influential chapter "Walking in the City", de Certeau asserts that "the city" is generated by the strategies
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With no clear understanding of such activity, social science is bound to create nothing other than a picture of people who are non-artists (meaning non-creators and non-producers), passive and heavily subject to received culture. Indeed, such a misinterpretation is borne out in the term "consumer".
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Certeau's investigations into the realm of routine practices, or the 'arts of doing' such as walking, talking, reading, dwelling, and cooking, were guided by his belief that despite repressive aspects of modern society, there exists an element of creative resistance to these structures enacted by
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begins by pointing out that while social science possesses the ability to study the traditions, language, symbols, art and articles of exchange that make up a culture, it lacks a formal means by which to examine the ways in which people reappropriate them in everyday situations.
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has emerged from scholarly interest in de Certeau’s distinction between the concepts of strategy and tactics. De Certeau defines "strategies" as the hidden means in which institutions and structures of power, or "producers", circumscribe a place as
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This is a dangerous omission, de Certeau argues, because in the activity of re-use lies an abundance of opportunities for ordinary people to subvert the rituals and representations that institutions seek to impose upon them.
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In the book, the word "user" is offered instead; the concept of "consumption" is expanded in the phrase "procedures of consumption" which then further transforms to "tactics of consumption".
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According to Andrew Blauvelt, who relies on the work of de Certeau in his essay on design and everyday life:
40:(1974). The 1984 English translation is by Steven Rendall. The book is one of the key texts in the study of 182: 207: 59: 36:, laws and language, in order to make them their own. It was originally published in French as 25: 71: 67: 63: 157:
de Certeau, Michel, trans. Steven Rendall, University of California Press, Berkeley 1984
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that examines the ways in which people individualise mass culture, altering things, from
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Giard, Luce. Keynote Speech at Victoria and Albert Museum for Civiccentre, 15 April 2003
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The Practice of Everyday Life at University of California Press
144:, edited by Andrew Blauvelt, Walker Art Center. 2003. 74:, in the light of a proposed theoretical model. 50:re-examines related fragments and theories from 38:L'invention du quotidien. Vol. 1, Arts de faire' 8: 142:Strangely Familiar: Design and Everyday Life 134: 7: 14: 102:The most influential aspect of 178:General Introduction on Ubuweb 16:1980 book by Michel de Certeau 1: 122:The Practice of Everyday Life 104:The Practice of Everyday Life 83:The Practice of Everyday Life 48:The Practice of Everyday Life 21:The Practice of Everyday Life 164:, Chance Books, London 1993 32:objects to street plans to 229: 213:Works about everyday life 198:1980 non-fiction books 126: 117: 120:ordinary people. In 78:Introductory chapter 26:Michel de Certeau 220: 160:Cummings, Neil. 145: 139: 228: 227: 223: 222: 221: 219: 218: 217: 203:Sociology books 188: 187: 174: 154: 149: 148: 140: 136: 131: 100: 80: 17: 12: 11: 5: 226: 224: 216: 215: 210: 205: 200: 190: 189: 186: 185: 180: 173: 172:External links 170: 169: 168: 165: 162:Reading Things 158: 153: 150: 147: 146: 133: 132: 130: 127: 99: 96: 79: 76: 15: 13: 10: 9: 6: 4: 3: 2: 225: 214: 211: 209: 206: 204: 201: 199: 196: 195: 193: 184: 181: 179: 176: 175: 171: 166: 163: 159: 156: 155: 151: 143: 138: 135: 128: 125: 123: 116: 113: 110: 105: 98:Key arguments 97: 95: 91: 87: 84: 77: 75: 73: 69: 65: 61: 57: 53: 49: 45: 43: 42:everyday life 39: 35: 31: 27: 24:is a book by 23: 22: 208:French books 161: 152:Bibliography 141: 137: 121: 118: 114: 108: 103: 101: 92: 88: 82: 81: 60:Wittgenstein 47: 46: 37: 20: 19: 18: 30:utilitarian 192:Categories 129:References 72:Détienne 68:Foucault 64:Bourdieu 34:rituals 109:proper 58:, and 56:Freud 70:and 52:Kant 62:to 194:: 66:, 54:, 44:.

Index

Michel de Certeau
utilitarian
rituals
everyday life
Kant
Freud
Wittgenstein
Bourdieu
Foucault
Détienne
General Introduction on Ubuweb
The Practice of Everyday Life at University of California Press
Categories
1980 non-fiction books
Sociology books
French books
Works about everyday life

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