Ok this is the only short summary I could find that I understood to an extent:
For more in depth but easy-to-understand explanation (not referenced in this post):
The Practice of Everyday Life – Michel De Certeau – Summary Points
General Introduction
- an investigation into how ‘users’ operate
- traditionally considered to be passive and guided by established rules
- traditionally considered to be passive and guided by established rules
- last 300 years has focused on the idea that the individual is an elementary unit of society
- groups are form out of individuals and are always reducible to individuals
- purpose of the study is to make systems of operational combination explicit
- expose the actual everyday actions of consumers
- “Everyday life invents itself by poaching in countless ways on the property of others.”
- groups are form out of individuals and are always reducible to individuals
- purpose of the study is to make systems of operational combination explicit
- expose the actual everyday actions of consumers
- “Everyday life invents itself by poaching in countless ways on the property of others.”
Consumer Production
- studies of popular culture and marginal groups
- did not locate cultural differences in groups associated with ‘counter-culture’
- did not locate cultural differences in groups associated with ‘counter-culture’
Usage, or Consumption
- many studies have looked at the representations of a society on one hand and how it behaves on the other
- analysis of tv broadcast images (representation) and time spent watching tv (behaviour) should be complemented by studies of what the cultural consumer ‘makes’ or ‘does’ with these images during this time
- analysis of tv broadcast images (representation) and time spent watching tv (behaviour) should be complemented by studies of what the cultural consumer ‘makes’ or ‘does’ with these images during this time
- production vs consumption – the latter is devious, silent and invisible
- example of Spanish colonizers forcing their culture upon indigenous Indians; they did not reject or alter them but rather subverted them by using them for ends and references that the Spanish could not relate to or understand
- comparison with consumer culture; the ‘common people’, like the Indians, have a foreign culture imposed upon them by the Elites, but often subvert this culture by using it in ways the producers did not intend
- comparison with consumer culture; the ‘common people’, like the Indians, have a foreign culture imposed upon them by the Elites, but often subvert this culture by using it in ways the producers did not intend
- the presence and circulation of representations tells us nothing about what they mean to people
- we must analyse the manipulation of cultural objects by ‘users’ other than its makers
- difference or similarity between the production of the image and the secondary production hidden in its use
- we must analyse the manipulation of cultural objects by ‘users’ other than its makers
- difference or similarity between the production of the image and the secondary production hidden in its use
- performance vs competence; the act of speaking is not the same as having a knowledge of the language
- language is “an appropriation, or reappropriation, of language by its speakers”
- users make countless transformations of and within the dominant cultural economy to adapt it to their own interests and their own rules
- language is “an appropriation, or reappropriation, of language by its speakers”
- users make countless transformations of and within the dominant cultural economy to adapt it to their own interests and their own rules
The Procedures of Everyday Creativity
- Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault – instead of analyzing the ‘apparatus exercising power’, he focuses on ‘the mechanisms that have sapped the strength of these institutions’
- ‘grid of discipline’ becoming more widespread; how does society resist this? how do people manipulate the mechanisms of discipline or conform to it so they can evade it?
- ‘grid of discipline’ becoming more widespread; how does society resist this? how do people manipulate the mechanisms of discipline or conform to it so they can evade it?
- micro-politics as everyday tactics of evasion from the imposed dominant cultural order
- consumers who are pushed to the limit and who resist social norms form a sort of network of ‘anti-discipline’
- consumers who are pushed to the limit and who resist social norms form a sort of network of ‘anti-discipline’
The Formal Structure of Practice
- assumption that everyday operations conform to certain rules
- what is an art or ‘way of making’?
- popular culture = arts of making
- an art of combination that is intertwined with an art of using
- what is an art or ‘way of making’?
- popular culture = arts of making
- an art of combination that is intertwined with an art of using
- two types of investigation, 1) descriptive analysis of readers’ practices, urban spaces, everyday rituals, resues of collective memory. 2) tracing the origins of the forms of these operations, e.g. the recomposition of a space by familial practices and the ‘art of cooking’
- sociologists, anthropologists and historians have examined mixtures of rituals and makeshifts (bricolages), manipulations of spaces, operators of networks (e.g. Goffman, Bourdieu, Mauss, DÈtienne, Boissevain, Laumann)
- linguistics: analysis of everyday interactions in relation to structures of expectation, negotiation, and improvisation of ordinary language. (e.g. Garfinkel, Labov, Sachs, Schegloff)
- linguistics: analysis of everyday interactions in relation to structures of expectation, negotiation, and improvisation of ordinary language. (e.g. Garfinkel, Labov, Sachs, Schegloff)
- formal logics, analytical philosophy: action, time and modalisation
- Noam Chomsky’s study of the oral uses of language
- Noam Chomsky’s study of the oral uses of language
The Marginality of a Majority
- an exploration of the types of operations that characterize ‘consumption’
- to find the origin of the creativity via appropriation that this hypothesis says is inherent in the act of ‘consuming’ culture
- to find the origin of the creativity via appropriation that this hypothesis says is inherent in the act of ‘consuming’ culture
- mass marginality: marginal groups have now become the silent majority
- the practice of re-use or adaptation of products is related to social situations and power relationships
- “The tactics of consumption, the ingenious ways in which the weak make use of the strong, lends a political dimension to everyday practices”
The Tactics of Practice
- consumer vs producer dichotomy; the collected material, a limited number of practices (e.g. reading, talking, cooking), the extension of the analysis of these everyday operations to seemingly unrelated scientific fields
Trajectories, Tactics, and Rhetorics
- consumers as ‘unrecognised producers’ and ‘poets of their own acts’
- comparison between consumers and autistic children in terms of what they produce
- comparison between consumers and autistic children in terms of what they produce
- limits of statistical analysis; captures material of consumer practices but not their form
- statistical analysis of this kind finds only the homogenous, missing out on the reality of the ‘artisan-like inventiveness’ of common consumers
- statistical analysis of this kind finds only the homogenous, missing out on the reality of the ‘artisan-like inventiveness’ of common consumers
- differentiation between ‘strategies’ and ‘tactics’
- strategy: the overarching plans of large institutions or power structures
- tactics: belongs to the ‘other’; depends on time; always on the watch for opportunities that must be seized on the spur of the moment; kairos
- tactics: belongs to the ‘other’; depends on time; always on the watch for opportunities that must be seized on the spur of the moment; kairos
- many everyday activities are tactical in nature, e.g. talking, reading, moving about, shopping, cooking, as do ‘ways of operating’
- tactics: intelligence is inseparable from them; strategies: based on objective calculations from a collective power or institution; tactics do not seek to take over or win and does not engage in sabotage
- rhetoric: ‘ways of speaking’; manipulations are related to the ways of persuading the will of the audience
- connection between the Sophists and tactics
- Sophist position: make the weaker position seem the stronger
- claimed to have the power of turning the tables on the powerful by making use of the opportunities in any given situation
- Sophist position: make the weaker position seem the stronger
- claimed to have the power of turning the tables on the powerful by making use of the opportunities in any given situation
Reading, Talking, Dwelling, Cooking, etc.
- focus on reading as an example of an everyday practice that produces without capitalizing
- production vs consumption; writing vs reading; consumer as a voyeur in a ‘show-biz society’
- production vs consumption; writing vs reading; consumer as a voyeur in a ‘show-biz society’
- reading as an act of production that is not recorded; akin to a once-off silent performance
- the reader interprets the writer’s words subjectively, making them their own; thus, ‘the viewer reads the landscape of his childhood in the evening news’
- the text is like a rented apartment where the occupier makes changes in the same way that a speaker changes a text by using their native tongue, accent or turns of phrase.
- reading is an art that is anything but passive, resembling the art whose theory was developed by medieval poets
- the art of conversation creates a collective communication that belongs to no one and everyone
- the possibility of establishing a reliability within the situations imposed on an individual
- making it possible to live in these situations by reintroducing into them an art of manipulating and enjoying
- making it possible to live in these situations by reintroducing into them an art of manipulating and enjoying
Extensions: Prospects and Politics
- analysis of tactics extended to two areas, 1) prospects / futurology, 2) the individual subject in political life
- futurology: falls short of adequately analysing ‘space’, focus on ‘simulation’
- relationship between rationality and imagination; the tactics of practical investigation vs the strategies offered to the public as the product of these practical operations
- relationship between rationality and imagination; the tactics of practical investigation vs the strategies offered to the public as the product of these practical operations
- the ‘split-structure’ of so many organisations requires a rethink of all the ‘tactics’ neglected by traditional scientific enquiry
- Freud’s civilization and its discontents; the microscopic connections between manipulation and enjoyment
- “the fleeting and massive reality of a social activity at play with the order that contains it”
- “the fleeting and massive reality of a social activity at play with the order that contains it”
- Quote from John Everyman: “When one does not have what one wants, one must want what one has”: “I have had, you see, to resort more and more to very small, almost invisible pleasures, little extras…. You’ve no idea how great one becomes with these little details, it’s incredible how one grows.”
