Certeau On The Oppositional Practices of Everyday Life 1980

On the Oppositional Practices of Everyday Life Author(s): Michel De Certeau, Fredric Jameson and Carl Lovitt Reviewed work(s):
Source: Social Text, No. 3 (Autumn, 1980), pp. 3-43 Published by: Duke University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/466341 . Accessed: 28/02/2013 11:44
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Practices ofEveryday On The Oppositional Life

MICHEL DE CERTEAU
I. READING THE ANONYMOUS
Thisessayis dedicated hero.Disseminated charactotheordinary man.Thecommon ter.Untoldwanderer. In invoking, ofmynarratives, at theoutset absent this who being their I question and necessity, as to thedesire ofwhich he givesthem beginning myself theimpossible tohimdocuments which were figures object.Whenwe dedicate formerly in homageto divinities offered or to inspirational whatdo we ask ofthis oracle muses, with therumor ofhistory that willauthorize us tospeakormakebelievable what merged we say? Thisanonymous herocomes from ofsocieties. he wayback.He isthemurmur Always He doesn'tevenwaitforthem. He paysno attention to them. But in precedestexts. written he gets along. Littleby little he occupiesthe center of our representations scientific The cameras scenarios. havedeserted theactors whodominated names proper and socialemblems inorder toturn toward thechorus on the themselves ofextras massed thenfinally to fixthemselves on thecrowd ofthepublic. The sociologization sidelines, and anthropologization of research theanonymous and theeveryday where privilege taken forthewhole.Slowly therepresentaclose-ups isolatemetonymic details-parts tiveswhopreviously andorders areeffaced from thescene families, symbolized groups, wheretheyreigned the timeof the name.Number has arrived, the timeof during ofthebigcity, ofbureaucracies, ofcybernetics. It is a supple andcontinuous democracy, woventightly ofquantified heroes likea fabric without tearorseam,a multitude crowd, who lose their namesand faceswhile themobile ofcalculations and becoming language in thestreet. rationalities which to no one. Ciphered currents belong havelongseemed to be theplacein tales,folk wisdom, Popularcultures, proverbs, which be sought and reidentified. Yet itis notpossible to confine the sucha heromight to the past, the countryside, modelsof a popularculture or to primitive operative in thestrongholds ofthecontemporary Thisis thecasewith peoples.Theyexist economy. This phenomenon even if [la perruque:"wigging"]. ripping-off spreadseverywhere, of it.' management penalizesit or "looks the otherway" in orderto knownothing Accusedofstealing, or retrieving material for their ownprofit, themachines for ofusing their ownends,workers who"ripoff" subtract from time thefactory than (rather goods, foronlyscraps are used)with a viewto work that is free, andprecisely without creative,
Pour une Michel de Certeau'sforthcoming The presenttextis an excerpt from book, Pratiques quotidiennes. tresordinaire," sectionwas abridgedfrom hisarticle,"Une culture ordinaire. The first semiotiquede la culture and teaches in the in Esprit 10 (October 1978), pp. 3-26. The author is a memberof the Ecole freudienne La prisede la parole (1968), at theUniversity ofCalifornia-San Diego. He has written Departmentof Literature (2nd ed., 1978). (1973), La Cultureau pluriel(1974), and L'Ecriturede I'histoire L'Absent de I'histoire 'See Miklos Haraszti, Salaire aux pieces (Paris, 1976), pp. 136-145.
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themachinetheymustserve,theyinveigle forthe profit.In the veryplaces wherereigns of to intended own know-how their gratuitous products solely signify pleasure inventing ofworkers witha gift. Withthecomplicity by theirworkand to respondto thefellowship a check on the thus fomented between thembythe of otherworkers put (who competition within one effects some blows the domain of the establishedorder.Far from factory), or individualunits of production,ripping-off being a regressiontoward handicraft intotheindustrial reintroduces order)the"popular" space (thatis to say,intothepresent tacticsof othertimesor places. in existence ofsuchpractices to thewidespread Any numberof examplescould testify of moderntimes.With the appropriate the most normativeinstitutions modifications, flourish withinbureaucratic or commercialadministrations equivalents of ripping-off as ever (and as little They are doubtlesstodayas extensive just as much as in factories. studied in theirown right),fullyas much the object of deep suspicion,censure,and omission. Nor is it only on shop floors and offices that this happens, but also in museums and specialized journals, where such practicesare debased and often of ethnological or folklore researchtend to consignedto oblivion. Thus the institutions or linguistic the merestphysical retain fromsuch practicesand activities objects,which and theirplaces of origin,placed under are then labelled accordingto theirthematics glass, offeredup for exegesis, and asked to disguise,beneath the peasant "values" of an order the legitimation of citydwellers, or the curiosity proposed forthe edification and "natural." In othercases, from whichits custodiansconsiderto be immemorial the to be extract tools and of such social ranged in products operations,they languages of the an borders untroubled exhibitsof technicalgadgets, spread out inertly along system. whichis subverted orderof things Yet it is verypreciselythe effective by just such to their without as their ultimate for own illusions tactics ends, any practical "popular" whereideological discourse Where dominating effects. powersexploittheorderof things, represses or ignores it, tactics fool this order and make it the field of their art. one is called to serve findsitselfinfiltrated by a styleof social Thereby the institution and of moral resistance-that a of a technical invention, is, by an style exchange, style for in which are also of the of ways asking something return), "gift"(generosities economy whichare forms or "strikes"[coups](operations by an aestheticof "moves," "trumphs," of thousands of an ethic and of artistic waysto denythe tenacity (so many by expression), This is what or even of whether establishedorderanylegitimacy, law, meaning, fatality). the anatomized for alien not some and purposesof corpus, "popular" culturereallyis, these which a and objects the exhibit,prepared upon reduplicates "quoted" by system same situationit has preparedforits living subjects. The increasing of timeand space, the disjunctive compartmentalization logic of the in of no the finds counterbalance ritualsof labor, specializations adequate conjunctive of mass communications. Yet the empirical this cannot transformed be fact organization into the law of living human subjects, individualor collective. It can indeed be the "gifts"of our masters,offer in exchange outsmartedby serviceswhich,emulating drawn from the which the storehouse of institutions isolate and products very program in reality marksthe those who work in them.This practiceof economicembezzlement It is thereby return of a sociopoliticalethicwithin theeconomicsystem. no doubtrelated to Mauss' notion of the potlatch,that game of voluntary whichobliges to prestation
Practices Everyday
a whole andorganizes socialcircuit around the"obligation togiveinreturn." reciprocity is ofcourse no longer theeconomic lawofourownsocieties: Thiskindofemulation the is theabstract and exchanges between are basic unitof liberalism suchunits individual, Today,indeed,thisfundamental equivalent. organizedaroundmoneyas a universal as a as a question which unsettles theliberal of individualism returns system postulate intoitspointof implosion. of western is transformed whole: thusan a priori history as something likethetrace within western seemstopersist Meanwhile, economy potlatch on into ourownsystem, buton themargins, ofa different modeofproduction: itsurvives in advanced however or in the interstices. It even knowsdevelopment, illegitimate, itself. The politics a tactic ofthe"gift" ofsubversion. liberalism also becomes thereby By waste intheeconomy ofthegift wasa willed lossandan intentional what thesametoken, is within theprofit transformed intoa transgression, as thefigure for economy standing or forcrime of excess(spoilage),forcontestation ofprofit), (violation (therepudiation private property).
II. ON TACTICS
An initial totheunderstanding ofeveryday oftheoppositional life approach practices be made the distinction between and I tactics. call the may through strategy strategy calculus(or themanipulation) ofrelations offorce which becomes whenever a possible of will and business an a a scientific subject power(a institution) enterprise, army, city, can be isolated. a placesusceptible ofbeing as a propre circumscribed Strategy postulates and of beingthe base from whererelations can be adminstered with an exteriority of or or threats the a the enemies, countryside (clients competitors, targets city, surrounding and objectsofresearch, all "strategic" rationalizaetc.). As inmanagement, objectives tionbegins its"appropriate" an "environment," that is,the bydistinguishing placefrom of own and will. A its Cartesian if will: to circumscribe one's power gesture, you place own in a world bewitched the invisible of the A of Other. by powers gesture scientific, or military modernity. political, The establishment of a caesurabetween an appropriated place and its otheris considerable some of which must be noted effects, by accompanied immediately: It permits on one to capitalize (1) The proper ofplaceovertime. place is a victory to for future and to itself thus an acquired advantages, prepare give expansions independence in relation to the variability of circumstances. It is a mastery of timeby the ofan autonomous founding place. It is ofplacesbyvision. a panoptic also a mastery The partition ofspacepermits (2) in which the look into transforms forces objects which one can observe practice strange and measure, inone'svision.2 To see (from a and"including" them therefore controlling will to be to time the of a distance) equally foresee, anticipate by reading space. todefine the totransform (3) It wouldbe legitimate ofknowing power bythis capacity theuncertainties ofhistory into inthese readable exacttorecognize spaces.Butitismore a specific ofknowing, one which of anddetermines thepower "strategies" type upholds a proper itself or scientific havealways been giving place. Moreover military strategies
exists whenit includes thestrategy oftheother." John vonNeumann andOskarMorgen2"Strategy only Behavior stern, Theory of Gamesand Economic (NewYork,1964).
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of "proper"fields(autonomous or cities,"neutral" by the constitution inaugurated "disinterested" research In other laboratories, institutions, words, etc.) "independent" and notonlyitseffect of thisknowledge, It or itsattribute. poweris theprecondition It in itself. the characteristics. them and produces permits governs stirthistoo formal In contrast to strategies schema and (whosesuccessive figures with a particular historical of also whoseconnection would need configuration rationality I calltactics thecalculated which isdetermined action to be madeprecise) bytheabsence of exteriority furnishes it a condition of of a properplace. Thus no delimitation no in that the it must with Tactics has of other. Also the place except play autonomy. It doesnothavethemeans force. terrain on it,organized bythelawofa strange imposed in itself, ina position ofretreat, ofanticipating, of containing itself ofgathering itself: it "in the enemy's fieldof vision"as von Bilow said it, and in thespace is movement thepossibility It does nothave,therefore, a global controlled ofgiving itself by him.3 in a distinct and objectifiable. It theadversary space,visible projectnorof totalizing from anddepends blowbyblow.It profits without a base in upon"occasions" operates to augment a proper sorties. Whatit whichto stocksupplies, space,and to anticipate doubtless butrequires be held.Thisnon-space amenabilpermits mobility, gainscannot inorder that a moment It must oftime, toseizethepossibilities offers. ityto thehazards theparticular combination utilize thegapswhich ofcircumstances openinthe vigilantly Itpoaches there. Itcreates control oftheproprietary Itispossible it for power. surprises. it. It is wile. no one expects to be where itwith In sumitis an artoftheweak.Clausewitz noted towileinhistreatise respect On War.The morea powergrows, thelessit can allowitself a partof its to mobilize theeffects ofdeception: it is in effect meansin orderto produce to employ dangerous when considerable forces forappearances' this kind is ofdemonstration sake,at a time vainandwhen theseriousness ofbitter renders direct action so urgent necessity generally thatit does notmakeroomforthis hisforces, one does notrisk game.One distributes in pretending. them On theother Poweris boundbyitsvisibility. ruseis possible hand, forthe weak and often "The weaker theforces which are onlyit,as a lastrecourse: themore to strategic will be vulnerable towile."4I translate itthus: direction, subjected they intotactics. themoreit changes a as a witticism the ruseto verbalwit:"Just also compares Clausewitz performs ruse ideasandconceptions, so alsothemilitary with performs preexisting sleight-of-hand the Thissuggest theprivileged ofintherealm ofaction."5 a sleight-of-hand wayinwhich The art intoan established order. introduces itssurprise effects oftactics sleight-of-hand Its is at one with a senseoftiming. of "scoring" on your of gamesmanship, adversary, ofthem inhisbookon wit6-boldly us a wholeinventory techniques-andFreudgives ofa given thenormal theinitial data in order to transfigure restructure space language the an with alien flash, thereby Cracks, glints,slippages, stupefying recipient. suchare thestyle of these theestablished of a given within brainstorms system: grids
movements beyond the fieldof vision of the enemy;tactics,that of 3"Strategyis the science of military movementswithinhis fieldof vision" (von Bulow). 4Karl von Clausewitz, De la Guerre(Paris, 1955), pp. 212-213.This analysiscan be foundin manyother fromMachiavelli on. theoreticians 5Ibid., p. 212. 6SigmundFreud, Jokesand TheirRelationto the Unconscious.
Practices Everyday
which aretheequivalent intherealm ofwitandthewitticism tactical ofaction practices, in therealmof language. Bereft of anyproper as blindand vision, anyglobalizing space of itsown,without as one must be in immediate intuitive hand-to-hand combat,ruled by temporal as chanceand luck,tactics are thus determined essentially bytheabsence ofpower fully muchas strategy In thissense,thedialectic is organized by poweras a precondition. ofsophistry. totactics art As thefounder wellbe illuminated bytheancient specific might in thetechniques of this of a great"strategic" was greatly interested Aristotle system, oftheorder of whosemission, as he considered, layin theperversion enemy, particular he quotesa Truth.Indeed,from thisprotean, and unpredictable dextrous, adversary, standas an admirable formulation of thedynamics of sophistry which can henceforth inourpresent definition oftactics tothesophist sense:thepoint, Corax,is "to according of this turntheweakest intothestrongest conclusion one."7The paradoxical position of intellectual therelationship of forces at work in theprinciple phraseat once reveals as stubborn as it is subtle,tireless, whichis our present objectof study: creativity on all occasions, thestrongholds of thedominant remobilized propagated throughout aliento therulesandmethods basedon the order,and utterly imposed bya rationality of self-identical rights space. on a spaceofpower are therefore actions which, (or one'sown Strategies dependent andtypes areabletoproject of theoretical spatial"property"), systems spaces(totalizing canarticulate ofphysical force isdistributed. which theensemble discourse) placeswhere of space-power,theory, and praxis-andaimat combine thesethree Strategies types of themwhichwill assuremastery; combinations theythereby foreground spatial or at leastattempt to reduce relations to spatial onesbyan analysis relations, temporal which a proper element andbya systemic attributes organization placetoeachparticular ofthetypes ofmovement The model ofstrategy was characteristic ofeachtype ofunity. and knowledge. a military one before itwas usedto organize "science" evidently stress on from their Tacticsare meanwhile whosespecific valuederives operations a punctual transforms intoa timeas such-on the circumstances which intervention which the situation or conjuncture, on therapidity ofmovements can change favorable of a moments of space, on the relations between the successive veryorganization variousduriesor between tacticalmove, on the overlapor intersection particular between thesetwovery etc. In thissense,thedifference rhythms, unequal temporal distinct of practice is one of twodistinct with historical to action types options respect constraints than situational and security, which havemoreto do with evidently options ofa with free choiceas such:strategies on theresistance which theestablishment gamble faith in on thecontrary to thewearandtearoftime; tactics puttheir placeor locusoffers itoffers a skillful utilization of time, as wellas theplayit can and of theopportunities inthis into thevery foundations ofpower. Evenifthemethods introduce employed guerilla warfare of everyday in quiteso clear-cut lifecan never a way,thefact be distinguished remains thatthey are characterized and temporal byspatial wagers respectively.
thestronger" Budd,1967, Rhetoric, II, chapter 24, 1402a:"Maketheweaker 7Aristotle, (edition argument 273 b-c). See also W.K. Vol. 2, p. 131). The same "discovery" to Tisiasby Plato(Phaedrus, is attributed in mentions On Cortax's which Aristotle texne, Guthrie,The Sophists 1971),pp. 178-179. (Cambridge, de andL. Olbrechts-Tyteca, with the"placesof apparent see C. Perelman connection enthymemes," Trait6 1970),pp. 607-609. (Brussels, I'argumentation
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The tactics or thepolemology oftheweakorpowerless maynowbe illuminated bya are thevarious of theoretical references. forexample, or Relevant, variety "figures" inhiswork inventoried on wit (and exhaustively byrhetoric byFreud "tropes"analyzed ofthereturn oftherepressed: and in hisstudies verbal andcondensation, muleconomy andalliteration, and misunderstanding, overdetermination displacement tiplemeanings in suchhomologies of content, between the etc.)."Thereis indeednothing astonishing rusesofpractice ofa rhetoric. Rhetorical and operations successful or figures playtheir unsuccessful terrain is precisely thatof self-identity, movesout on a restricted which of rule-governed in justthat or "proper" and ofthe"literal" namely, syntax meaning andexclusion defined its senseevokedabove: thatis, a lawful spaceofidentity against external other.Rhetoric offers thepossibility ofa manipulation oflanguage dependent on theappropriate occasion andaiming toseduce, orinvert thelinguistic entrap, position of thereceiver.9 has thefunction ofpolicing the"proper" use of Thus,where grammar drift, terms,rhetorical condensation, (metaphoric play and transformation elliptical thedeterminate of language in miniaturization, appropriation metonymic etc.) marks ofritual oractual situations combat. Suchrhetorical theindications linguistic procedures, andofa playofforces, of consumption arepart ofa whole ofenunciation; problematics are in principle and thisis why, excluded from a (and perhaps because)they although "manners a scientific these of offer whole of discourse, speaking" repertory "properly" modelsand hypotheses fora study of analogous modesof action. In thefinal analysis, the semiotics of as former are and inany tactics so variants ofthe such, only many general latter.Obviously, of sucha semiotics wouldrequire a rather theelaboration different thanhasnecessarily beenthat which oftheresearch bearsthat name, emphasis presently and which around therationality ofproper itwould is oriented In particular, meaning. of quitedifferent artsof thinking and action, suchas thesixty-four imposethe study or of ancient the metis the Chinese of Greece," ("intelligence") hexagrams I-Ching,'o 12 or of anynumber or of the Arabichila, of other forms of "logic"nowaliento us. to construct suchan alternate I will not here be concerned but rather semiotics, to a certain number of in which we think afresh thedaily merely suggest may ways of when are a tactical consumers of they type.Dwelling, walking, spelling, practices ofthe activities oftactical characteristics many reading, cooking-such shopping, present tricks ofthe"weak"within theorder rusesandsurprises: established an bythe"strong," within therealm oftheother, artofscoring hunters' maneuvers wisdom, polymorphous and military inventions. and mobilities, jubilatory, poetic, Suchactivities toa timeless hasnotmerely artwhich survived the perhaps correspond institutions of successive but reachesback well before orders our own sociopolitical histories and finds solidarities thevery of humanity. frontiers Indeed, strange beyond suchpractices in immemorial curious present analogies-as though intelligence-with
"Freud, op. cit. 9See Stephen Toulmin, The Uses of Argument (Cambridge,1958); C. Perelmanand L. Olbrechts-Tyteca, Traitd,op. cit.; and J. Dubois, et al., Rh6torique g6n6rale(Paris, 1970). 'tSee the I-Ching (Chou-1), or Book of Changes,whose 64 hexagrams(formedby 6 brokenor fulllines) in the course of the mutations of the universe. of existents representall possible configurations " Marcel D'tienne and Jean-Pierre in Greek Cultureand Society(Atlantic Vernant,CunningIntelligence Highlands, N.J.: Humanities,1978). 12See M. Rodinson, Islam et le capitalisme (Paris, 1972).
Practices Everyday
the simulation, thatcertainfishor certainplantsexecutewith and tricks strikes, The of suchartcan thusbe found as faras lifeitself virtuosity. procedures prodigious as transcended not the of historical exists, though they merely strategic separations but also the break the of consciousness itself. institutions by institution very inaugurated continuities and the permanency of a memory without They thusassurethe formal all thewayto thestreets from theocean's depths oftoday's megalopolis. language, itwouldseemthat thegeneralizaIn anycase, on thescaleofcontemporary history, a proliferation, inthe oftechnocratic hasproduced tionand theexpansion rationalization interstices ofjustsuchpractices which wereformerly ofthesystem, controlled bystable those local unities.More and more,tactics swingout of theirorbits.Loosed from traditional theirfunctioning, communities whichonce circumscribed theybeginto and extended. wanderthroughout are a space increasingly Consumers homogenized The system is too vastto localize transformed in which circulate intoimmigrants. they a place to be able to escapeit and to find them, spreadout forthem yettoo infinitely The "strategic" Thereis no elsewhere. modelthereby is also transformed, "elsewhere." from as thoughlost by its own success:it dependedon a "properplace" distinct the that little else." It is conceivable else; itnowbecomes bylittle "everything everything oftransformation modelmayexhaust itsownpossibilities and cometo constistrategic over ofold) ofcybernetic tutethevery as thecosmos society, given space(as totalitarian Thiswouldmeana tactics. movements of innumerable and invisible to the Brownian of within an immense andunpredictable ofrandom gridwork manipulations proliferation and socio-economic of quasi-invisible constraints movements, myriads precautions: to andcontinuous texture ofa homogeneous across theeverfiner space"proper" playing ofourbigcities? Is thisalready or still thefuture thepresent everyone. oftheir ofruses, as wellas thepossibility asidethemultimillenary archeology Leaving tactics of everyday must never thepresent nonetheless future, study anthill-swarming thehorizon from which comenor,at theother thehorizon extreme, may they they forget will someofthe ofthese horizons at leastallowus toresist reach.The evocation someday of thefundamental butoften and obsessive less happyeffects one-sided contemporary of repression as such.Thattheprobleand themechanisms of theinstitutions analysis is no a rolein contemporary research shouldplayso predominant maticof repression themselves areindeed institutions scientific and research partofthevery greatsurprise: conforms to the well-known genreof the family system theyanalyze;theiranalysis thecritique initsoperation, to change simply anything failing (a critical ideology history Suchinstitutions itbelongs a genus towhich ofdistance within theillusion itself). creating aretoldin whose stories orwerewolves ofthose devils charm tendto add thedisquieting of repression of theapparatus Yet thiselucidation theevening byitself by thehearth. which abletoseethose a signal notbeing defect, heterogeneous practices namely presents this chance ofsurviving haveevery tohaverepressed. Yet they itbelieves itself particular a partof sociallife,all themore are also themselves and in anycase they apparatus, to adjustto perpetual andcapacity in their resistant Surveying changes. very suppleness
of the nighttime of exploring one has the impression this fleeting reality, yetpermanent are in whichsuccessiveinstitutions societies,a night days,a dimsurface longerthantheir and politicalapparain whichsocio-economic maritime immensity profiled,a virtually tuses come to seem ephemeralinsularities. researchis not insignificant, even where it The imaginary landscape of a particular
10
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lacksrigor. It restores whatusedto be called"popular culture" what onlyto transform used to seema matrix-force ofhistory thus intoa mobile oftactics, maintaining infinity the structure of a social"imaginary" whosefundamental takeon questions constantly new shapesand ariseanew.By thesametoken, it forestalls theeffects of an analysis whichcan necessarily of a particular technical onlyin function graspsuchpractices as thetransformation with thelatter's oforinterference instruments. Herethe apparatus, is itself to itsownobjects with ofstudy. The landscape which analysis marginal respect in theimaginary modethushas thefunction of a globaland stagesthesephenomena a defense their reduction It thus rectification, against bylateral therepeutic inspection. their ensures ifonly as ghosts. Thisreturn toanother continuing presence, stage thereby recalls therelationship between theexperience ofsuch andwhat an analysis can practices tell about them:it is the witness-a fantasmatic one at best,non-scientific-of the between andtheir elucidation. Whatcan be written disproportion dailytactics strategic aboutwhateverybody thetwothings, does? Between theimage, ofan expert but ghost silent thedifference. body,preserves
III. MICHEL FOUCAULT, OR, TECHNOLOGIES IN DISSEMINATION
We must with theproblem oftherelationship ofsomeprocedures todiscourse. begin For theseprocedures do nothavethefixed andrepetitive structure ofrituals, or customs, ofinstinctive which nolonger have indiscourse tobe articulated orhave not types knowledge their The mobility kind ofthis ofprocedure to a variety of yetfound expression. adapts or effects, butdoes notdepend on verbal elucidation. Their from objectives separation In fact, tactics within discourse mustnotbe overestimated. discourse can,as we have withnonverbal seen above, be correlated tactical acts. Indeed,the implicit thought invested in thesekinds of action constitutes a peculiar-andmassive-instance of the and theory. between relationship practices In Discipline theorganization a workin which he examines of penal, and Punish, of the 19thcentury, at the beginning Michel academic,and medical"surveillance" an impossible to approximate Foucaultattempts of nounthrough a proliferation proper and poetic evocations:"apparatus,""instrumentations," synonyms "techniques," and so on.13 Thisvery and terminological "machineries," "mechanisms," uncertainty is already suggestive.Yet the basic storythe book has to tellinstability or socio-historical thatof an enormous deal-postulatesa fundamental quidproquo andprocedures, andcharts between their evolutions and respective dichotomy ideologies is a chiasmus: intersections. howtheplaceoccupied In fact, whatFoucault analyzes by at theendofthe18th is then humanitarian "colonized" or andreformist century projects which havesinceincreasingly "vampirized" by thosedisciplinary procedures organized thesocialrealm itself. Thismystery ofa substitution ofcorpses would havepleased story Freud. for thedrama is played outbetween twoforces whoserelationAs always Foucault, is inverted On theone hand,there is the by theruseof history. ship to one another
withits revolutionary ideology of the Enlightenment, approach to the matterof penal
"3Michel Foucault, Surveilleret punir (Paris, 1975); on Foucault's earlier work, see M. de Certeau, L'Absent de I'histoire (Paris, 1974), pp. 115-132.
Practices Everyday
11
ofthe18th aimessentially at doing with the justice.The reformist projects century away of hand-to-hand withthatbloodyritualization "ordeal" of theancienregime, combat to dramatize intended thesymbolic of royalty overtheappropriate criminals; triumph such projects involved theequalization of penalities, their to the gradation according and their educational valuebothforthecriminals and for itself. crime, society In actual fact,however, evolvedin the army and in the disciplinary procedures schoolsrapidly cometo prevail overthevastandcomplex elaborated judicial apparatus are refined and applied and the new techniques by the 18thcentury Enlightenment, without to anyovert recourse thedevelopment ofa cellular for ideology: (whether grid or sickpeople) transforms intoan students, workers, soldiers, criminals, space itself instrument which can be usedto discipline, to program, and to keepunder observation of technology therefinement and attention to any social group.In suchprocedures, intheuniversalization overtheory, ofa single, minute detailtriumph andresult uniform undermines therevolutionary oftheEnitself-which institutions punishment-prison and everywhere from within substitutes thepenitentiary forpenaljustice. lightenment Foucaultthusdistinguishes between twoheterogeneous He describes the systems. won by a political of the bodyoveran elaborated of system superiority technology doctrine. andtriumphant Yet he does notstophere:inhisdescription oftheinstitution ofthis "minor to particular instrumentality"-the penalgrid-he also tries proliferation determine which of no individual thescope of suchan opaque power, is theproperty is neither has no privileged and no inferiors, which locus,no superiors subject,which nor dogmatic in its action,and whoseefficacity and is quasi-autonomous repressive itscapacity functions to distribute, and spatially individuate classify, analyze, through and ideasas continues to produce merewords ideology anygivenobject.(Meanwhile, a seriesof clinical-andsplendidly Foucault usual!) Through "panoptical"-tableaux, then in his turnattempts the "methodological to name and to classify rules,"the andthe"processes," "functional the"techniques" thedistinct conditions," "operations" like which and "mechanisms," and "elements" would constitute something "principles" a "microphysics ofpower."'4 Thisexhibit to diagram a particular hasa dualfunction: thus stratum of nonverbal and also to found a discourse aboutthosepractices. practices How are suchpractices In a characteristic to be described? of indirection, strategy Foucaultisolates thegesture which discursive and space-not, as inMadness organizes theepistemological and socialgesture of confining an outcast in orderto Civilization, createthespace of reasonitself-but a minute rather gesture, everywhere reproduced, inorder visible tosubject itsinhabitants tosurveillance and bywhich spaceis partitioned intheir The procedures which andperfect this then turn report. repeat, amplify, gesture whichtakesthe form of the so-called "humansciences"or organizethatdiscourse We havethereby a nonverbal which identified Geisteswissenschaften. gesture-agesture has been privileged, and socialreasons to be described, and forhistorical which remain thenis articulated which thediscourse ofcontemporary science. through thenovelperspectives itmight alsohave Alongside opened upbythis analysis'5--and
'4See Foucault, op. cit., pp. 28, 96-102,106-116,143-151,159-161,185, 189-194, 211-217,238-251,274-275, a historical 276, etc.: a series of theoretical"tableaux" punctuatesthe book and profiles object forwhichit inventsan adequate discourse. '-See in particular Gilles Deleuze, "Ecrivain,non: un nouveaucartographe," in Critique, no. 343 (December 1975), pp. 1207-1227.
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a wholemethod foranalyzing the nonverbal intoa wholestylistics, been prolonged to our itself-several kinesics and rhythms of the textof thought questions relating be raised: may present project sinceThe of thehuman sciences-Foucault's explicit (1) In his archeology project of "matrix"-the"technology Orderof Things-and in his searchforthatcommon to both the code-the of be found could punishment organize penal power"-which of is human the human sciences-the human beings-Foucault knowledge beings-and of which form the led to makea selective choicefrom the among totality procedures centuries. with a single fabric of socialactivity in the18th and 19th He begins prolifera kind of a scientific or juridical andthen, technology, through ating system, essentially from as a isolates thecancerous thereby body whole, surgical growth thesocial operation, itscontemporary inthetwo centuries. dynamic bywayofits genesis preceding explaining massof historiographic materials academic, (penal,military, Drawingon an immense the opticaland panoptical whichcan medical), thismethoddisengages procedures within theat first to proliferate to identify be found it,thereby disguised increasingly becomes moreprecise, and of an apparatus whosestructure indices complex, gradually within thedensity ofthesocialfabric as a whole. determinate at one and raises twodistinct Thisremarkable questions historiographic "operation" the same time:on the one hand,the decisive role of technological and procedures in theorganization ofa society; on theother, theexceptional development apparatuses or privileged statusof one particular We must category amongsuch apparatuses. nowask: therefore theprivileged ofthat constituted series (a) How do we explain development particular byFoucault's apparatuses? panoptical in their of seriesor procedures which to all thoseother (b) Whathappened types togiverise toa specific discursive orto unremarked itineraries failed either configuration a technological wellbe lookedon as an immense reserve Theymight systematization? which ofalternate never tookplace. theseedsor thetraces containing developments It is in anycase impossible to reduce thefunctioning ofa wholesociety to a single, dominant Recentstudies ofSergeMoscovici on urban (suchas that typeofprocedure. or Pierre on themedieval haverevealed organization,'6 Legendre juridical apparatus'") otherkindsof technological whichknowan analogousinterplay with apparatuses, back into the storehouse of social ideologyand prevailfor a time,beforefalling as a whole, at which other them intheir function of procedures apparatuses point replace a wholesystem. "informing" On this view, then,a societywould be composedby certain which, practices withdrawn and externalized, noworganize itsnormative institutions, selectively alongside innumerable otherpractices remained do not organize which, "minor," having discourse butmerely itself thepremises or theremnants of institupersist, preserving tional or scientific that from one Itisthen differ toanother. within the hypotheses society latter-a multitudinous and silent of procedures-that "reserve" thepractices of conshouldbe sought, which thatdoublecharacteristic undersumption practices present scoredby Foucaultof beingable to organize bothspace and language in dominant or subordinate ways.
humainede la nature(Paris, 1968). '6Serge Moscovici, Essai sur I'histoire '7Pierre Legendre, L'Amour du censeur.Essai sur l'ordredogmatique(Paris, 1974).
Practices Everyday
13
or "full"form-inthis instance thewholecontemporary formation (2) It is thefinal and of surveillance serves as the for discipline-which pointof departure technology But the coherence of is Foucault's his archeology: impressive findingsthereby explained. that assume all procedures themselves hadthis coherence? A priori, no. The can we really and even of would seem to be cancerous development panoptical procedures exceptional and their as a from historic role practices weapon against heterogeneous indistinguishable a a means of controlling the latter. coherence the effect of their is Thus, particular the historic and nota characteristic ofall technological Thus,behind success, practices. of the dominant we the existence "monotheism" suspect procedures, might panoptical and survival ofconcealed but ofa "polytheism" or disseminated practices, marginalized notobliterated the historical of one of their number. by triumph whenit has becometheorganizing of a particular (3) Whatis thestatus apparatus thathas of What the of is effect uponit of theprocess principle a technology power? a it the and it into dominant? isolated from rest, externalized, transformed privileged, withthe dispersed ensemble of other What new kind of relation does it maintain and it at their own when has length been institutionalized as penitentiary procedures in an could lose scientific It might fashion wellbe that apparatus privileged this system? owed its own muteand that efficacity to Foucault,it originally which,according On emerging from that stratum where Foucault minuscule technical advances. obscure intheposition wellfind of itmight itself locatesthedetermining mechanisms ofsociety, an institution itself colonized still more silent Indeed, byother, imperceptibly procedures. it willbe one of thehypothesis of discipline and of thepresent essaythatthissystem which was in the on that surveillance formed 19thcentury the basis of procedures intheprocess other ofbeing oneswhich remain it,is today bystill vampirized preexisted to be described. fact theapparatuses of further? Is notthevery as they evolve, that, (4) Can we go still have themselves and a partof thevery surveillance becometheobjectof elucidation, a sign thattheyhave ceased to determine rationality, languageof Enlightenment as itis itself an effect institutions? Insofar discursive byunderlying produced organizing fill that discourse would tend tobetray those which no longer rolebyitsown apparatuses, the articulation of them.At thatpoint-unlesswe are to supposethat,by analyzing it is itself from which and Punish surmounts itsownbasic derived, Discipline practices and "procedures"-we wouldhaveto ask what distinction between appa"ideologies" inturn, ratus an apparatus which articulates this discourse must bydefinition escapethe latter's detection. answers can be found Suchquestions-for which at least only provisional here-may serveto measurethe extent has brought of the of thechanges Foucault to thestudy ina ofeveryday as wellas thenewperspectives hehasopened. life, Byshowing, practices and ideoloand equivocal relations between case, theheterogeneous apparatuses single a newobjectofhistorical that zoneinwhich gies,he has constituted study: technological havespecific which are specific to effects ofpower, obeylogical dynamisms procedures
in thejuridicaland scientific institutuions. modifications them,and produce fundamental which But we do not yet know what to make of other,equally infinitesimal procedures of remained unprivileged and whichyetcontinueto flourish in the interstices by history whichlack the institutional thecase of procedures This is mostparticularly technologies. the essential precondition indicatedby Foucault, namely,the possessionof a locus or
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ownon which thepanoptical canfunction. Suchequally spaceoftheir machinery specific are those "tactics" yetinitially seemingly powerless techniques very precisely operative, discussed I willsuggest that formal cluesas to thenature above,ofwhich they provide of everyday consumer in general. practices
IV. PIERRE BOURDIEU, OR, "KNOWING IGNORANCE"
Yet itwouldseemthat such"tactics" can onlybe analyzed bywayofa longdetour another 19th or inFoucault; France, society: pre-revolutionary century through Kabylia or B6arninthework ofPierre in ancient that ofMarcel Detienne and Bourdieu; Greece, Jean-Pierre etc.It is as though, ofoccidental Vernant, marginalized bythedevelopment tactics need to return from another scenein order to takeon thenecessary rationality, and articulation. Thus other lands restore touswhat ourownculture hasseenfit visibility to excludefrom itsowndiscourse. But are notthesetactics defined from the precisely outsetas whatwe ourselves haverepressed or lost?As in Levi-Strauss' Tristes Tropiafarto discover in our own thosevery ques,18 we musttravel things unrecognizable midst. For Kabyliato constitute a kindof Trojan Horse of a "theory of practice" for for the three admirable texts dedicated to thisregion to standas a multiple Bourdieu; to a lengthy for thesethree to statement; preface epistemological ethnological chapters intoa theory which is their ownprose andtoserve as the lead, likepoems, commentary latter's and infinitely referential basis;fortheir fascinating quotableand reexaminable and poeticplace to vanish from thefinal itsdiscursive title, and,disseminated through to be slowly likea sunfrom thespeculative litbyit:such still effects, effaced, landscape features a specific 9 ofpractice within already suggest positioning theory. This is of courseno accident: which since1972is indeed,all of Bourdieu's work, devoted to "practical organized along the same meaning."20is withone exception With one variation:his workon matrimonial and genealogical strategies lines.-2' substitutes thereference to B6arnforthat of Kabylia.22 Two referential loci economy rather thanone: can we decidewhich is themeredoubleof theother? Bothproject ordered"familiarities" which are nonetheless theone byexile,theother haunted, by cultural difference. itwould seemthat thehomeland, as in-fans orspeechless Still, B6arn,
Tristes a meditation 'IClaude LUvi-Strauss, (Paris, 1958); see especiallythepages on the"return," tropiques on travelwhichis transmuted of memory. intoan investigation "'Pierre Bourdieu, Esquisse d'une theuorie de la pratique(Geneva, 1972). The titleof the book is thatof the are notverynumerous: second, or theoretical, part. On Bourdieu, unlikeFoucault,French-language critiques is thisthe simultaneouseffect of the fearand admiration generatedby a Bdarnaisempire?The "ideological" characterof Bourdieu's positionis objected to by R. Boudon (in L 'Inegalite des chancesor in Effets et pervers ordre social). In a Marxistperspective:Baudelot & Establet (L'Ecole capitliste en France); Jacques Bidet ("Questions 'a P. Bourdieu," in Dialectiquesno. 2); L. Pinto("La Th6oriede la pratique,"in La Penske, April et pratique in 1975), etc. Froman epistemological pointofview,see L. Marin,"Champsth6orique symbolique," Critique no. 321 (February 1974). W. Paul Vogt presents Bourdieu's theses in "The Inheritanceand Reproductionof CulturalCapital," in The Reviewof Education(Summer 1978), pp. 219-228. matrimonials dans le systemede reproduction," in Annales E.S.C. (July"P. Bourdieu, "Les strat6gies October 1972), pp. 1105-1127;"Le langageautorisd,"in Actesde la recherche en sciences sociales (November, 1975), no. 5-6, pp. 183-190;"Le sens pratique," ibid., Feb. 1976, no. 1, pp. 43-86. 2 "Avenir de classe et causalit6du probable," Revuefrancaisede sociologie,XV, 1974, pp. 3-42. 22"Les strategies matrimoniales," op. cit.
Practices Everyday
15
which as any origin, neededthereduplication of theKabylescene(forBourdieu, so can a real Onlybywayof thisobjectification analogous)to finditsown articulation. one: "otisont les Bearnais foundation be madewithin (butalso an imaginary d'antan?") thehuman sciences theconcept ofthehabitus, which constitutes Bourdieu's for personal mark on theory. The specificity oftheoriginal isthen effaced behind itspower experience to organize a moregeneralizing discourse. TheOutline Dividedintwosections enables theother), ofa Theory (eachofwhich of is first a practice It thus a metaphor, Practice andforemost ofinterdisciplinarity. projects as itoffers from to sociology. insofar thepassagefrom one genre to another, ethnology Is itmeant tobe Yet things toclassify. arenotquiteso simple as this, andthebookis hard in workin thekindofinterdisciplinary confrontation formerly byBourdieu,23 sponsored the presuppositions whicheach discipline seeks to analyzeand to renderexplicit to each specialty? Such confrontations soughta mutualepistemological belonging in thatbroaddaylight of and strove their foundations to display elucidation, implicit consciousness which is boththeambition andthemyth ofscience itself. Here,perhaps, rather seems to thestakes aresomewhat andtheOutline different, ofPractice ofa Theory thedarkbacktoward when itturns thisnewinsight which a discipline gains interrogate because butrather to flight, ness thatsurrounds it-not in orderto putthatdarkness it is constitutive and ineradicable.Theorywould thencome intobeingwhenever or determining withcorrecting its own rulesof production a science,not content its relationship of validity, starts to thisinevitable its own limits exteriority. thinking Whetheror not this is the directionof Bourdieu's current discourse,it is in that the themselves ofpractices inthe boundaries anycasebeyond disciplinary opaquereality theoretical question appears. studied thepractices involve such calledbyhim"strategies," byBourdieu Explicitly as thesystems of inheritance in Bearn,thephysical oftheinterior of the layout things andorganization oftheKayble andso forth. Theseare year, Kabylehouse,therhythms buta fewgenuses which includes the"strategies" offecundity, ofa species inheritance, social or economic etc., as well as those education, investment, marriage, hygiene, of "reconversion" between and whicharise during strategies practices discrepancies ofa "logic of In eachcase,concrete allowsomeoftheproperties differences situations.24 to be specified. practice" andgeometric the tablesor "family trees," surveys (1) Genealogical mapsofhabits, linearcycles ofcalendars and homogeneous are all totalizing effects ofthe productions, in comparison to the strategies themselves observer's distanceand "neutralization," whichform blocks"either thekinship relations into"city becauseof actually practiced moveor theplaceswhich and successive are distinguished usefulness, bytheinverse ments ofthebody, orthedurations ofactions ownpace attheir accomplished stepbystep with Where and at ratesincommensurate eachother.25 thesynoptic an map,essentially of summation instrument and a mastery levelsand classesall thecollected by vision, ofheterogeneous nuclei discontinuities, operations. organizes Kinship, "given,"practice
J.-C.Passeron andJ.-C.Chamboredon, is theconfrontation in Le Metier de 23This byP. Bourdieu, urged (Paris,1968),pp. 112-113. sociologue "Les strategies "Le sens matrimoniales," op. cit., pp. 1107-1108; 25Esquisse, op. cit.,pp. 211-227; pratique," op. cit.,pp. 51-52;etc.
24See "Avenir de classe .. .," pp. 22, 33-34,42, etc.
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notthesameon theone handand on theother. space, and timeare therefore is situated at thefrontier oftworuses.With these (I wouldadd thatthisdifference thescientist hidestheoperation ofretreat andpower which madethem tables, synthetic the"given"solicited the side,whilefurnishing possible.On their bytheinvestigators, concealthepractical difference created between them practitioners necessarily bythe whichuse them(or not), and theythuscollaborate in the production of operations hidetheir tactics from theobserver. The knowledge of practices generaltableswhich wouldbe theresult of thisdoubledeception.) distinction marks theboundary between twodistinct of (I wouldadd thatthis types ruse.The synthesizing tablesand graphs ofthescientist maskthedistantiation and the which in thefirst made them thesubjects of such mastery possible place. Meanwhile, theethnic datathey studies, themselves, furnish, "practitioners" bythevery passoverin silence the role of actual practice in differentiating between such data: theythus andschemata themselves intheproduction tableaux inorder collaborate ofglobal tohide their owntactics from theobserver in question. aboutpractices wouldthen Knowledge be a combined result of thesetwin deceptions.) inBourdieu's sense(marrying oneofyour for is the children, (2) "Strategy" example) a trick ina cardgame," of"taking anddepends on thequality of equivalent preeminently thegame,as a result ofthecardsyouare dealtandthewayyouplaythem.26 The actof a trick thusdepends on thepostulates which determine the"play-field," on the taking ruleswhich confer on a given handitsmeaning andassign to theplayer a certain number of possible and on that inmaneuver skill with which a first-class plays, particular player will increasehis capitalduring the game. This complex structure be can, however, resolved intovarious distinct functions: qualitatively number ofimplicit inBearn, thesuperiority of (a) Therearea certain (thus, principles husbands towives, orelders toyouths-principles which ensure andprotect in patrimony an economy are neverexplicitly poor in cash flow);yetthefactthatsuchprinciples and thepossibility defined of tolerance of playing one principle off opens up margins theother. against rules (for instance, the adot: "compensation to younger (b) There are explicit for their brothers renunciation oftheinheritance"), butthese areaccompanied bylimits which reverse them which the in the adot to be returned (as in thetournadot, requires eventof childless of suchrulesmust therefore take marriages). Everyimplementation intoaccount thisomnipresent ofreversal which is linked to circumstances. possibility tricks and strategems must meanwhile, "navi(c) "Strategies," ("l'agirestretors"), all thepossibilities and "exploit offered inquestion," gate" theserules, bythetraditions thisone rather thanthat, thatone with thisone,etc. The soft choosing compensating ofa rigid to structure allowsthem a given network to their appearance reality according ownpriorities. Moreimportantly, shift andslipfrom one function to another, strategies divisions between theeconomic, thesocial,andthesymbolic. short-circuiting Thus,for a lack of children willcompensate for a bad marriage instance, (biological fecundity) (a bad choicein terms ofmoney or station), while theretention ofan unmarried younger brother at homeas unpaid domestic labor(economic investment as wellas restriction of theaddedadvantage ofavoiding him theadot(institubiological fecundity) presents paying
26"Lesstrategies matrimoniales," op. cit.,p. 1109;etc.
EverydayPractices
17
tional benefit). Strategies do not simply "apply" preexistingrules and principles; of theirown operations fromout of the latter.27 they select the repertory one genrcto another,suchpractices can be assimilated to the from (3) As theyshift and one of "metaphorization," Freudian conceptof "transference" and to the rhetorical thus imply a specific "logic" of their own. Bourdieu exercizes his own "ruse" in order to outsmart the labyrinthine developments of these ruses of practice and to underscorethe following essentialprocedures:28 or multifunctionality: the same thinghas different (a) polythetism applicationsand combination; propertieswhichvaryaccordingto its positionin a particular one thingcan always be replaced by another,giventhe kinship (b) substitutability:. it represents; withall the othertermsin the particular totality the it is important to conceal the factthatactiontendsto disrupt (c) euphemization: dichotomiesand antinomiesrepresented by any given symbolicsystem.The union of contrariesin ritualmay serve as the model forsuch euphemization. of the symbolic order(but all such procedures, Ultimately, essentially transgressions whichapparently theestablished linguiscamouflagedtransgressions, metaphors respect in the veryact of violating tic distinctions them),maybe summedup underthe primacy theauthority of rulesis thevery of analogy. From thisstandpoint, oppositeof recognizing reversed in have to them-a chiasmus which would be fundamental contempapplying we no longerrecognize. orarysocietyin thesense in whichwe applylawswhoseauthority of all such practicesis to be In any case, Bourdieu suggeststhatthe ultimate principle such as Duhem, Bachelard, and found in that very"analogical mode" whichscientists Campbell, saw at the verysource of theoretical innovation.2' are all governedin thelastanalysis (4) These practices bywhatI have called above the the In this Bourdieu's locus. work, economyof economytendsto be represented proper in two distinct and equally fundamental, butunthematized ways:on theone hand,as the maximizationof capital (materialand symbolic a givenpatriwhich constitutes goods) mony; and on the other, as the developmentof the body itself,both individualand and of space (throughits collective, the producer of time (throughits fecundity) All and their success or are to be tracedback ruses, failure, displacements). subsequent to an economywhichseeks to reproduceand to augment thesedual yetcomplementary formsof the Kabyle "house"3" itself:goods and bodies, land and lineage. A politicsof "locus" thusunderliessuch strategies. Whence two featureswhichso strongly connectthose practiceswiththe "enclosed or theKabyle house) and with place" whereBourdieu consideredthem(theBearn family the typeof observationto whichhe submits them: (a) He always presupposes the twin link of all practiceswith a particularplace or thegroup). (the family (patrimony)and a particular typeof collectiveadministration But suppose one or the otherof thesepreconditions This is significantly is missing? the technocratic withwhich case, forexample, withcontemporary societies,by comparison the proprietary and familialenclaves of yesteryear or of other cultureshave become
27See"Les strat6gies matrimoniales," op. cit. "Les senspratique," 2"Seein particular op. cit.,esp. pp. 54-75.
30As is wellknown, the"house,"intraditional both thedwelling societies, designates (goods)andthe family itself (thegenealogical body).
de sociologue, op. cit., pp. 290-299. 29Le m6tier
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veritable let alone robinsonnades. comes Yet whenBourdieu utopiasor lostworlds, or among within a contemporary today's upon thesesame practices bourgeoisie, petty he treats themas "short-term and near-sighted as "anarchic housewives, strategies," ofhalf-baked which collection reactions" reveala "disparate ideas,"a "cultural sabir," "a hodge-podge of decontextualized notions."3' Yet thesamefundamental logicis at ofKabylia workinboththese andthose orB6arn:thedifference contemporary practices thecontemporary onesnowoperate ofthelocus which their is that independent governed in theOutline societies. Whatbecomes use in traditional ofa Theory of problematical itadumbrates is thus notthenotion ofpractice ofspaceor Practice which butrather that it presupposes. place which is a similar with theuse oftheterm (b) Yet there byBourdieu. "strategy" problem The term is justified constitute so many to particular bytheidea that practices responses At the same time,however, Bourdieuinsists thattheseare not really conjunctures. at all in thestricter senseof theword:there be no choice can,forexample, strategies no "strategic there canbe no readjustintention"); (andthus amongvarious possibilities menton the basis of improved information and (and thusno genuineassessment calculation as such);there can be no forecast offuture butonlya world configurations a cyclical ofthepast).In short, "itis becausethese stable, subjects repetition presumed that what know aredoing, do hasthepossibility of do notstrictly what they they speaking areabletoknow.""32 characterization ofsuch morethan Hence,Bourdieu's they meaning a craftiness that itself. as "knowing does notknow ignorance,"33 practices Withsuch"strategies"-governed locus, unconsciously intelligentspecific bytheir the mosttraditional form of ethnology For the latter, tendsto makeits comeback. and werecharacterized as ethnic units coherent both indeed,itsinsular objectsofstudy twofeatures which are in factinseparable. In order forcoherence to be unconscious, of a scientific and of its epistemological as the precondition knowledge postulated, thesociety in and such must be at a distance from model, posited knowledge postion The of the the to for unconsciousness under was be study very group price paid question. itscoherence madeto pay). Society was able to be constituted as a (a priceitwas then if of the that it was unaware itself: thus inevitable the corollary, only justifying system in what a was it. was needed order to find out such without society knowing ethnologist or even think it then make such claims them: how is would Today,ethnologists scarcely which is possibleforBourdieuto do just thatin the name of thatotherdiscipline sociology? on thebasisof the structures" "objective Sociology-to thedegreethatit defines derivedfromempirical furnished (whichare themselves by statistics "regularities" or "objective state" of andseesevery as a "particular "situation" research) conjuncture" for ofa practice toa given seektoaccount theadaptation one ofthese structures34-must or itsdiscrepancy. How is itthat itis generally theharmony between structure practices into"particular which materialized and structures tends configurations") being (thelatter
3 "Avenir de classe op. cit., pp. 11-12. Bourdieu in any case fails to take into account studiesof in our own societies.See forexample (on A.O. Hirschman, ....," individualconsumers'strategies Exit, Voice and Loyalty[Cambridge, 19701) the above article,p. 8, note 11. 32Esquisse, pp. 175-177and 182; "Avenir de classe ...," pp. 28-29; etc. 33Esquisse, p. 202. 34Esquisse, pp. 177-179.
EverydayPractices
19
In general, the replyto thisquestion will posit some to be observed and confirmed? in thepractices mechanism or attribute reflex or instinctive someobjective skill or themselves, Bourdieu to their bothsuchoptions, and substitutes his rightly rejects practitioners. ingenuity theadaptations forthem, ofpractice to explain to structure the own "theory" seeking through former's genesis. It mightof course be suggestedthatthe termsof the problemhave been stackedin advance. Of the threeelementsin question-structures, and practices-only situations, the last two (whichcorrespond to one another)have been empirically observed,whilethe afterwards on thebasisofstatistics. Even before is a hypothetical modelconstructed the first thereare twopreliminary matterof "theory"can be engaged,therefore, epistemological in questions to be addressed: (a) as to the alleged "objectivity"of the "structures" question, an objectivityperpetuatedmainly by the convictionthat the sociologist's discourse is the discourse of the real; and (b) as to the limitsof the practicesand when situationsunderobservation,and in particular of theirstatistical representations, thatstructural modelsare supposedto explain.These compared withthe global systems as such. problems are, however,leftunexaminedin the haste to construct theory Under thesecircumstances, willadjustpractice then,Bourdieuneeds a conceptwhich to structure at the same timethatit can accountfordiscrepancies betweenthe two. He needs a supplementary or term, and discovers rubric it,appropriately enough,in thevery of education,namely, process whichis at the heartof his specializationas a sociologist mediationbetweenthe acquisition as such. Acquisitionproves to supplythe necessary structures which organize it in the first place and the various "dispositions"it can be of structures supposed to produce. This "genesis" implies an internalization through of what has been thusacquired (the soacquisition, and a subsequentexternalization called habitus) in daily practice.A temporaldimensionis thereby introduced into the what to has been "acquired") correspond adequately (expressing problem: practices if and onlyif,duringthisprocessof internala givenstructure) situations(manifesting in question has remainedstable; if it has not, an the structure ization/externalization, to the or misalignment of practiceswill resultfromtheirfidelity inevitablediscrepancy and its transformation older state of the structure at the momentof its internalization, into the habitus. On such a view,structures can changeand thusbecome a principle ofsocial mobility, perhaps indeed the onlysuch principle.For what is acquiredcannotchangeand has no ofstructure, themarbleinto movementof itsown, beingthemerelocus oftheinscription which theirhistory is carved. Nothinghappens in the area of acquisitionwhichis not as in traditionalconceptionsof somehow the result of some previous exteriority: movesthere, and thereis no history save what and/or peasant societies,nothing primitive thatthe of thismemory its theory externalforcesintroduce.The immobility guarantees in the variouspractices. will continueto be faithfully socioeconomic system reproduced In the long run,then,it is not acquisitionor apprenticeship (visiblephenomena)which play the central role in Bourdieu's system,but ratherwhat has been acquired, the And thelatteris thereto serveas theunderpinning ofan explanation ofsociety habitus.35
35The concept and the termexis (habitus) derive fromMarcel Mauss (Sociologie et anthropologie [Paris, textswhichBourdieu quotes, Panofsky had underscored the 1966], pp. 368-369); meanwhile,in well-known theoreticaland practicalimportance of thehabitusin medievalsociety(see M6tier de sociologue,pp. 287-289). In Bourdieu's own work,the idea is an old one: see Le Metierde sociologue(pp. 11, 52, etc.) on sociological
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Yet there is a heavyprice to payforsucha "solution," in terms of itsstructures. most in in that or the the fact the base must habitus, hypothetical notably support question, and invisible. unverifiable remain themodesbywhich of practices, are Whatinterests Bourdieuis thegenesis they on what for the as with account of but rather Foucault, Not, they produce, generated. whichexamined studies such sake of what producesthem.From the ethnological has thusbeen a thatelaborates a theory of practice, there to the sociology practices towards the whose of discourse fundamental ethos, habitus, (exis, synonyms displacement and "second modus operandi,"common sense," nature"),definitions, justifications and a passive, narrative haschanged, The heroofthis particular beginto proliferate.36 for the the has been substituted of the nocturnal habitus, actor, cunning multiplicity ofa as to their basic the observable earlier Henceforth, agent, phenomena "strategies."'37 an essential to the former: indeed "he" attributed since will be character, givensociety we moveto within "structures" movement thetheory-from enablesa kindofcircular which in thence and to to the habitus readjust "conjunc"strategies" (always italics), to theoriginal reassimilated whoseeffects and deter"structures," tures,"themselves are. states minate they a construct to a hypothetical In reality, this circle however, ("structure") passesfrom an of and from there to observed facts (thehabitus), reality interpretationempirically What than is even more the status and striking heterogeneous of (strategies conjunctures). inthetheory is theroleitassigns totheethnological thesevarious elements "fragments," to fill orBearnais-thus which are supposed up theholes.The Other-whether Kabyle thatmakesthe theory workand helpsit "to explain ingredient suppliesthe missing outsider all which this distant the features the defined Indeed, presents everything." of and itself: absence habitus coherence, self-consciousness, territoriality (the stability, the equivalent of patrimony). acquired knowledge, habit, etc., constituting theethnological ornative "other" is represented Bourdieu's Thus,within bythe theory, in the structures are inverthe as habitus that invisible house, itself, Kabyle spacewhere, time is inverted a second as itexandwhere that "text" then areinternalized, tedas they looklikefree The in theform which itself ofpractices ternalizes improvisations. merely of Bourdieu's most brilliant thus object ethnological Kabylehouse--the analysis--is lodged as itssilent and "ultimately within concealed beneath the memory, theory determining" the and on latter like of habitus conferring the hypothesis something a metaphor or a tangible referential anddensity. Yet itsvery verification reality metaphorization by turns this"reference" intothemerest houselends andtheKabyle verisimilitude, theory In anycase,Bourdieu in itsform is moreinterested habitus alone,and notitscontent. in of for than the and usefulness such a demonstrathypothesis theory showing necessity a placeofdogma, ifbythat Habitus becomes term we understand thereby ingitsreality. in ofa certain which to make theaffirmation discourse order "real" requires totalizing theheuristic claims.It doubtless shareswithmostdogmas function of displacing and lines of research. renewing
"schemata," or L'Amour de l'art(Paris, 1969,p. 163) on "taste." This notionis in hisworktodaysurrounded scholastic terms and axioms,interesting ofa possiblereturn of ofproperly withan impressive battery symptoms medieval order withincontemporary technocracy. 36See Esquisse, pp. 175, 178-179;"Avenir de classe ...," pp. 28-29; etc. now studythe 37See the celebrationof the hero, in "Avenir de classe ...," pp. 28ff.We may therefore "strategiesof the habitus" (ibid., p. 30, italicsmine).
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of Bourdieu These texts use their content to fascinate and their theoretical analytic to polemicize. content As I readthem, I feeltheholdofa passion that they exasperate it.Theyaremadeofcontrasts. whilearousing examination ofpractices Bythescrupulous and of their thatdoubtless has no equibvalent sinceMauss-they logic-witha rigor the a subsume latter under function itis to habitus-whose mystical reality-the finally of mechanism the their Subtle of or reproduction. descriptions B&arnais Kabyle provide tacticssuddenly as though suchlucidly truths, give onto abrupt pursued complexity neededthebrutal a of reason. His also knows itscontrasts, style counterpoint dogmatic initspursuit, initsaffirmations: and labyrinthine a peculiar massively repetitive perverse combination ofan "I know, I know" and a "still and (this ruse) proliferating transgressive In and all" (theremustbe some totalizing order to this meaning). escape aggressive I willsuppose(in myturn) that essential for theanalysis oftactics seduction, something must be at stakeinthis contrast. Theblanket characterization Bouridieu's casts "theory" overthesetactics, to extinguish their as though flames their bycertifying subsumption undersocio-economic or bydeclaring them unconscious and thusin some rationality, senseinoperative as agents, to teach to all us something abouttheir ought relationship theory. criteria and procedures, a use ofinstituthesetactics makeso autonomous By their tionaland symbolic that we to take them the scientific seriously organization were in of and of the wouldbe lost them. The postulates ambitions representation society latter all givebefore the ofmaterial, couldnotresist; divisions normalities, generalities, Mathtransversal and "metaphorizing" of thesedifJferent microactivities. proliferation in an interminable refinement of their ematics and exactsciences are involved specific to follow movements ofnon-human therandom microbian phenologicin theattempt mena. As forthesocialsciences, whoseobjectis evenmore"subtle"justas however, todefend instrumentation is cruder, wouldremain their there as an ultimate only option willtomastery) sucha proliferation. their models(or inother their words, byexorcizing the of exorcism consider And in fact, thetried and truemethods itself, they following a singular is tosay,alieninits latter unconscious (or local)phenomenon, (that something itsjudges haveofitalready. andas revealing, theknowledge unwittingly, very principle) is locked into Whenthe"observer" hisjudiciary andthus is institution, securely enough theoperation itproduces is successful and thediscourse seemsto hold blind, sufficiently good. however. To be sure,at some(relatively like thishappensin Bourdieu, Nothing theobjects of ofthetactics, obvious)level,he also seemsto moveout(in thedirection a kind ofprofessional offalse rationality): onlyto return again(in a confirmation study) that he himself retreat a meretextual Butdoes this sortie, notsuggest hasty "strategy." suchoverly offer to scientific knowsthe (perhaps mortal) intelligent practices danger of Thiswouldbe somedistantly Pascalian combination ofthedisintegration knowledge? and aboutscientific reasonand a dogmatic faith. Bourdieu knows too much knowledge tactics toowell, whose ruses thepower onwhich itis founded, these only justas heknows ruses he replays with inhisowntexts. He must therefore lockall these suchvirtuosity up
and negate,through of thehabitus, thefetish behindthe bars of an unconscious anything He willthus-with thedoctrine reason lacks to be otherthanthereasonof thestrongest. of the habitus-affirm the contrary of what he knows-a most traditional popular him of reason) willthenafford tactic-and thisdefense(a homage paid to the authority
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thescientific ofobserving in carefully tactics circumscribed places. possibility Ifthis is thecase (butwhowould be ina position tosayso?),Bourdieu canteach usas muchbyhisown"dogmatism" as byhis"case-histories." The discourse which conceals thanhiding whathe knows(rather whathe does notknow)wouldhave theprecise value of practicing "theoretical" thatknowledge; it wouldthusbe the result of a to itsownineradicable conscious and notmerely thetheater of exteriority, relationship an elucidation. Is it possiblethatsuchdiscourse itself thereby rejoinsthat"knowing accusedof beingknowledgeable without becauseit it, precisely ignorance," knowing knows saysnorcan say? onlytoo wellwhatit neither
V. THE ARTS OF THEORY AND THE THEORY OF THE ARTS
Whentheory, thecaseofbeing instead as isso often discourse other, upon preexistent intonon-or preverbal in which ventures domains there are onlypractices discourses, without arise. There is a sudden and discourse, shift, anyaccompanying unique problems therockbottom oflanguage is missing. The theoretical finds at itself operation suddenly thelimits ofitsnormal likea carat theedgeofa cliff-beyond, butthe terrain, nothing sea. andBourdieu work on thecliff Foucault when to invent a discourse that they attempt can speakofnondiscursive Norarethey thefirst to do so: without back practices. going we can at leastsaythat to theflood, no theoretical research since Kanthasbeenable to some overtstatement as to its relationship do without to nonverbal, nondiscursive "remnant" in human to thatimmense ofeverything which has not activity, experience been tamedand symbolized has beenable to avoidthis bylanguage. Onlyone science a priori confrontation: conditions for itself so as tolieinwait for within that setting things limitedfieldwheretheycan be "verbalized." This is experimental science,which andmodels that ofhypothesis which will"makethem itsobjectswithin grid anticipates ofquestions, likeso many hunters' thesilence of speak,"itsbattery traps, transforming intoanswers, intolanguage."A genuinely theoretical on thecontrary, things inquiry, does not forget, cannotforget, thatalongside the relationship of variousscientific discourses there their eachother, mutual toeverything which among persists relationship has had to be excludedfrom in orderto found suchdiscourse it in the first place. Theoretical discourse thusretains itslinkto theproliferation of whatdoes not(yet?) mustevidently be numbered thepractices of everyday lifeitself. speak, amongwhich
the Antigoneof what is refused Theory is thus the memoryof this wordlessremnant,
admittance to the halls of science.Theoryconstantly to reintroduce this attempts technical reminder backintoa scientific constraints havemade unfortunate spacewhere in a provisory Buthowcan itsomission (and supposedly way)necessary. "politically" or bystrategem? it manageto do so? By scandal To answerthisquestion we mustreturn fora moment to Foucault and Bourdieu, whoseimportant are significantly and indeed mark thetwo findings divergent, virtually field ofresearch. sharea certain ofconstruction Still, poles of thepresent they process
and a similar different schema,in spiteof their objectsof study, operational problematics,
to derreinen thescientist is a "judge whoforces witnesses 38Kantalreadysaid as muchin the Kritik Vernunft: formulated." replyto questions he has himself
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be saidto constitute twodistinct variants ofa "recipe" and perspectives. Theymaythus for theories of practice. As in cooking, a recipecan be appliedin quite different and also has itstricks and itsgoodand and forquitedifferent circumstances purposes, witha Yet in the same way thata cooking bad practitioners. recipeis punctuated in twosteps:extract, and thenreverse-first the "ethnocan be resumed operation an inversion. of object,then itslogical logical"isolation a seamlessweb, in orderto from The first particular practices step disengages them a distinct andseparate a coherent whole which into isnonetheless constitute corpus, is produced: Foucault's or alien to the place in which theory panoptical procedures, inboth thegenre Bourdieu's Meanwhile, instances, (for "strategies." KabyleorBearnais is taken to be themetonymy of isolated Foucault)or theplace (forBourdieu)thereby is used to the whole species: a part,observable becauseit has been circumscribed, ingeneral. inFoucault, ofpractices To be sure, this the(undefinable) totality represent of a giventechnology; isolationis used to makesenseout of thespecific a dynamics In Bourdieu, work. an analogous certain bythehistorian's dicoupageis thus generated is supposedly around a given of patrimony isolation bythedefense imposed space,and is fact. Yet thesameethnological as a socioeconomic anda geographic andmetonymic offered is common to both analyses. dicoupage In thesecondstep,theunity thus isolated is reversed: what wasobscure, unspoken, and culturally becomes thevery element which throws on thetheory alien,suddenly light in the is founded. In Foucault, embodied and upon whichthe discourse procedures ofschool, or hospital, without surveillance army, anydiscursystems micro-apparatuses to theAufklarung, become havesuddenly the sivelegitimacy, utterly techniques foreign which makessenseofourownsociety as wellas of thehuman sciences. veryrationale and as techniques, allowFoucault and his discourse Both as objectsof study to they intheir In Bourdieu, thedistant andtosee everything. becomevirtually turn, panoptical is similarly andtransgressive inverted, strategies coming space ofsubtle, polymorphous, and articulate a theory which now sees the same practices to document reproduced Reducedtothehabitus which these instinctive and manifest, they essentially everywhere. unconscious now allow Bourdieuto explaineverything and to transform strategies intoconsciousness. oftheemphasis on theresults of Thus,inspite byFoucault everything theprocedures he examines, andthat rather on the"essential laidbyBourdieu principle" in ofwhich hisstrategies aretheeffects, which both thesameoperation, consists perform secretand aphasic practices into the centralaxis of theirtheories, transforming in whichtheir and makingthisessentially nocturnal over into a mirror population can shine forth. discourse explanatory This very"tactic"marks their theories as members of thesamespeciesof practice ownobjects eventhough their reduction oftheir allows them to they analyze, metonymic thevery inthefirst that their theories ofcourse, repress generates operation place.Foucault, thedetermination in thecase of thehuman studies of discourse byprocedures already
sciences: his own analysis, however, betraysan apparatus analogous to those whose it was able to reveal. We would have to studythe differences betweenthe functioning panoptical procedures Foucault has told us about, and the twin gestureof his own its narrative,which consists in isolatinga foreignbody of proceduresand inverting obscure contentinto a luminoustext. certain number of action imperatives (blend, beat, bake . . .), so also the theoretical
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thetwo in moredetail, aboveand beyond We mustfirst examine thistwin gesture far frombeing theoretical workshitherto studiedhere. In fact,such procedures, amount to an ancient which is no lessinteresting forall recipefortheory exceptional, the from the turn of that.We need onlymention twowell-known century: examples ina "primitive" suchpractices and their theories ofpractice, situate also, inconstructing in own civilized is properly contrast to our closedspace, a realmwhich "ethnological" discover thetheoretical of their societies:and in thatobscure formulation place they in sacrificial of most it is the the Australia-the Arunta of Thus, practices analysis. of all Durkheim discovers the basis of a social and peoples-that theory a "primitive" primitive for The restriction that sacrifice on the modern socialethic society: imposes appropriate willof the individual renders coexistence and mutually conventions unlimited agreed renunciation and abnegation and conenableplurality possible;thus,forDurkheim, of of is the foundation the social which to itself: the limits is tracts, saysociety acceptance For the be detected essential of meanwhile, contract.39 Freud, may concepts psychoanalysis the theemergence ofLaw from in thepractices of theprimal horde:incest, castration, in no that direct Suchdetours are all themore deathofthefather.40 experience striking to observe thepractices had anyoccasion them. Neither FreudnorDurkheim validates of the terrain as Marx had of experience theydiscuss,and had as littlefirst-hand I4 How is it thenthat intoan enigmatic suchpractices becomereconstituted factories. theultimate secret oftheory can be read,as itwere, backwards? closurein which own of our in which we the existence are no such secret Today, practices surprise with It time itself. would be vain to distant and but ever nearer unfamiliar, grow longer when of it in Australia or at the is seek this lodged reality beginning history, ethnological ifnotthe oron theoutskirts, at thevery heart ofourownsystem (panoptical procedures) evencloser still of our cities(Kabyleor B&arnais (the strategies), perhaps verycenter, We Yet however close its the "unconscious" content, ethnological form itself). persists. of our this form-a musttherefore first figure modernity-in privileged interrogate holdthekeyto its which distance from nonetheless housedat great knowledge practices secrets. reflection at a of itsown freewillthattheoretical It is not exactly keepspractice ofitself to study outside this inorder to be forced exterior which itthen distance, object to return itto itsownhouse.Itsprocedural areinfact steps repetionlyneedsto invert ontheory theregions inwhich the nondiscursive itstudies tions byhistory: procedures imposed so many Indian wereformed reservations for are found byitinto bythepastandconstituted in the like cameto function as something a frontier, science.Suchregions enlightened and of thevarious scientific courseof the establishment by theAufklarung; disciplines within and differences "resistances" unassimilable came to stand as so many gradually from on. So itis that in areestablished the18th thescientific texts whosecanons century of on that of the arts thenameofprogress a newdifferentiation comes into being: doing, in popular inventoried the one hand, formulas forpractical increasingly operations,
de la viereligieuse (Paris, 1968); and see also W.S.F. Pickering, "3Emile Durkheim,Les Formes616mentaires Durkheimon Religion(London, 1975). 40Freud, Totemand Taboo. politique(Paris, 1978). 41See Fritz Raddatz, Karl Marx, une biographie
Forms of ReligiousLife and Freud's Totemand Taboo. They Durkheim's Elementary
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intobeing. which sciences a newepisteme brings with between no longer thetraditional coincides Thisdistinction "theory" opposition whichdeciphers the book of the cosmos,and its and "practice"(the "speculation" one twoquitedistinct nowdesignates concrete butrather operations: "applications"), the 16th in discourse. in and by language, theotherlacking Indeed,from discursive, and between therelationship revolutionizes on, the idea of method knowing century intodiscursive transformed "operations" slowly practices, doing:legal and rhetorical a specific for into fields andthus on diversified exercized milieu, transforming techniques a which a discourse itself: of method schema the fundamental organizes impose gradually certain of a the rationalized administration of into a form of doing, thinking way thevery Suchis "method," fields. forspecific and an operation designed production of thesystematization itconstitutes Andina sense, sourceofcontemporary scientificity. now Yet method ofactivity.44 to therealm thatartwhich Plato,in theGorgias, assigns runs no longer The boundaryline itstechnical bywayofdiscourse. knowledge organizes to attached theother one speculative, of knowledge, betweentwo hierarchical types is the other while the world the of order in absorbed one the reading particularities, devised theframework within thedetail ofthings to explore content rather, bythefirst; arenot andthose which indiscourse articulated nowruns between theboundary practices verbalized. not yet) (or such technical of nonverbal What will be the statusof such forms know-how, and knowis both on method the discourse without writing (since writing techniques a but undisciplined operativities, ledge)? The realmof skillis made up of multiple of to those obedient is but of discourse not the laws which does already obey proliferation ofa capitalist andsubsequently theultimate valueofa physiocratic economy. production, of the over of scientific theprimacy thuschallenge Such activities organization writing of the technicians and stimulate they language; alternately exasperate they production; one of butrather of inconsequential and nota conquest practices, proposea conquest, Bacon to Christian From of and types knowledge. "complex," "operative" "ingenious," effort is made to colonizethisvast an immense or JeanBeckmann, Wolff therefore, can as sciences, notyetable to be articulated reservoir of "arts"and "crafts" which, and thereby nonetheless be introduced into languageby meansof a "description" which derives of "description" Withthesetwo terms-that increasingly "perfected." to which of that and from progress-the aspires technological "perfection" narrativity, ofscience.45 theboundaries of the"arts"is fixed: situation near,yetoutside ofcollation: ofthis a as wellas themanifesto is thesumma The Encyclopidie process "arts" and "sciences" It Arts and the Reasoned Crafts. juxtaposes of Sciences, Dictionary whose are operatory the former assimilation: in the promiseof a future languages an for still latter the formal constitute and techniques waiting systems, grammar syntax to Diderot seeks on In his article of it. short Art, knowledge, yetfalling enlightened
1975. dansla viequotidienne, Le livre oftheexposition, nationale, 42See thecatalogue Bibliotheque de Ilhommein 1799. foundedthe Soci't6 des Observateurs Jouffret 43Louis-Francois 44Gorgias, 465a. inThall's,Vol. XII, 1966, de la technologie," andJ.Sebestik 45J.Guillerme pp. 1-72) ("Les commencements
ofman";43and,on theother to the"observers ofthe attractive hand,that literature;42
ofDescription arts areobjects status: ofthis ofexamples (pp.2, 4, 32,37,41,46-47, intermiediary givea series etc.).
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therelation these twodisparate entities. We havean "art,"he tells between us,"if clarify the object is to be contemplated": a distinction between and speculation performance than Cartesian. Thesamedistinction "art" Baconian isreduplicated within which ismore on whether theartinquestion ismerely oractually itself, depending represented putinto the inoperative and its practice: the former, practice:"Each art has its speculation ofitsrules;thelatter, andunreflected thehabitual useofthose samerules." knowledge and is Art is thusa form of knowledge which outside discourse operates enlightened it.Indeed,suchtechnical know-how canevenoutrun science absentfrom by enlightened inthearts, itsvery ofgeometry Diderot "It is obvious notes: Thus,speaking complexity. is in itselements farmorerudimentary and undeveloped than thatacademicgeometry for thegeometry oftheworkshops." Calculus is,for problems example, quiteinadequate textiledeformations, of leverage,friction, and the like. The desirable clockwork, wouldbe the"appropriate task"for an ancient andmanipulative solution "experimental even though the "language"of the latter has remained mathematics," undeveloped, of owingto "the dearthof its own properwordsor terms"and the "abundance to thosearts [manouvriers] Diderot,following Girard,refers By "manipulative" which are limited to the"adaptation" ofrawmaterials: etc., cutting, trimming, joining, on them some"newbeing"(bysmelting, without etc.) as the composition, conferring arts a newproduct as little as they do.47They"form" "manufacturing" dispose properly are simply But as knowledge of a languageof their forms of bricolage. is own; they new hierarchies criterion of arts win to the such into reorganized according productivity, newlinesof a twofold value: of reference, to their and of opening owing operativity, In to their and their subtlety. "experimental very development, owing manipulative" the with more come to consti"scientific" they incommensurability properly languages, tutean absolute ofpractical a form ofefficacity detached words, which, (inother activity fromdiscourse, its productivist of nonetheless embodies ideal), as well as a reserve in in a and the hidden countryside, Logos awayin uncatalogued knowledge workshops is and already at the future of science. There introduced into the handicraft thus hinting of the of time the to the arts science superior problem lag: epistemologically relationship orforms knowsciences areseparated from these arts oftechnical bya temporal handicap in to howwhich are elucidate. time, they supposed, suchpractices which areboth distant from "Observers" therefore towards the throng this as 1699: "The of and ahead ofthem. Fontenelle as sciences early urged workshops our artisans showa spirit and an inventiveness which has hitherto to ofall kinds failed which need examine and reflect on and attract to to instruments notice. practices People . .."I4 are so usefuland so ingeniously devised These willbecomethe collectors, . and analysts. hererecognize a typeof knowledge Still,even though describers, they must the nonetheless that of theformer which its from scientists, they disengage preceded own a of its so-called transform into discourse these language, specific "improper" willturn all these ofeveryday handicraft. Science "marvels" Cinderellas into princesses;
46Encyclop6die(Geneva: Pellet, 1773), Volume 3, articleArt,pp. 450-455. of Girard.See on thissubjectGuillerme& Sebestik, 47Ibid., articleCatalogue, by David aftera manuscript pp. 2-3. des Arts is 48Fontenelle, Preface to Histoirede l'Academie royale pour 1699, where Sur la description published; quoted in Guillerme& Sebestik,p. 33, note 1.
synonyms."46
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this ofethnological tobe performed on suchpractices is and with aim,thetype operation henceforth secured:the latter's social isolation a kindof "education" demands which in scientific makethem will,bylinguistic inversion, presentable writing. It is noteworthy thatfrom the 18th to the20thcentury, historians and ethnologists theirstandpoint, as essentially have, from alwaysconsidered techniques respectable. to notewhatoperations thelatter without They are content interpretationperform, a is enough. those stories consider mere"legend" Theymeanwhile bywhich description tries to placeorsymbolize itsownactivities, of yetanother group strange given example the disparity betweenthe treatment of practices and of discourse. Wherethe first the"truth" thesecondunmasks the"lies" of ofdoingor ofpractical activity, registers contrast with theprolix of theformer descriptions strikingly speech.Indeed,thebrief a privileged theprofessionwhich havemademyths orlegends objectfor interpretations als of language, forclerks with their hermeneutic longtrained, passeddown procedures to from to comment and docureferential and/or jurists professors ethnologists, gloss and "translate" ments them intoscientific texts. At length, this is complete, andthefield ofwordless hasbeen development practices A and will circumscribed. hundred have Durkheim later, fifty years scarcely historically to modify the"ethnological" it-when reinforce he takes merely description-but upthe the of that to "those which are "arts," is, things problem according him, purepractice in all its purity. without Durkheim theory."Here is the absoluteof "operativity" continues: "An artis a system ofpractical activities to andthese ends, adjusted particular activities theproduct areeither oftraditional transmitted education orthe by experience result ofthepersonal of the in bereft of individual." and experience Lodged particularity thegeneralizing of art is a no no less and less organized by power language, "system" to speakin the science and ethics nowentitle "ends"-and thesetwobasicpostulates it lacked.Also which discourse place of art and to hold that"proper"or intrinsic ofeducation ofthispioneering theorist and ofsociology is theinterest characteristic and acquisition:"The onlywayto acquirean artis to place forartistic production in contact with theobjectson which it works and to perform thisactivity self one's no longeropposesthe "immediacy" of its operations one's self." Thus Durkheim to some lag or neglect of theorywith respectto "manipulative"knowledge, retains a hierarchy based on education. "An art," as Diderot did; but the former "can no be this doubt or to use Durkheim self-conscious continues, keyword enlightened, but reflection not its essential since of theAufklcirung, such is ingredient, it can exist it. Yet there no artwhich without exists is fully reflexive."49 In anycase,in a terminology a science, which is "fully reflexive"? still Is there then, which of the that the is akinto of theory assigned spoke "contemplation," Encyclop6die, on for this new More is taskof "reflecting" society a "totality." generally, Durkheim, in same is a inscribed he can the there textwhich token, by knowledge only decipher; inwhich itcanbe read, Science will be themirror butnotyetilluminated. thesepractices, and uncona language this and willoffer to "reflect" immediate, precise, yetwordless at the time unformed. and same sciousoperativity, already intelligent yet As Durkheim observed about sacrifice (whichis "closerto us thanits apparent
See Bourdieu, Esquisse, p. 211, who sees in 49E. Durkheim,Educationet sociologie(Paris, 1922), pp. 87ff. this text a "perfectdescription"of "learned ignorance."
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crudenesswould lead us to believe"50),art is a kindof knowledge whichis essentialto it. This is to be sure a dangerouspositionforscience itself, science yet illegiblewithout whatit lacks in itsown right. Thus a kind since it is leftonlywiththepowerto articulate of complimentarity is envisaged between science and art, or even a kind of mutual articulation,as Wolff,followingSwedenborgand anticipating Lavoisier, Desaudray, man who would unitescience Auguste Comte, and others,willpropose in 1740: "a third and artin himself, and who wouldmakeup fortheweaknesses ofthetheoreticians, justas he would free lovers of the arts fromthe erroneousidea thatthe lattermight perfect . . . ."5' This mediatorbetween"the man of themselveswithoutany theory altogether theorems"and "the man of experience""52 would be the engineer. The "thirdman" has hauntedenlightened or scientific) discourseand (philosophical still does, but he did not end up takingthe formanticipated.The place ultimately was the resultof assigned him (and todayslowlyreduplicated by thatof the technocrat) the progressive the 19thcentury, of artfrom itsown techniques detachment, throughout on theone hand, and thegeometrization and mathematization of thosetechniques on the other. Little by little whatevercould be detached fromindividualperformance was an administrable complex "perfected" in the formof machines,whichthenconstitute of forms,raw material,and forces.These "technicalorgans" are now withdrawn from manual competency(which they surpass when they become machinery)and placed withina new space of theirown, underthesupervision of theengineer:theynow belong to "technology." Thus the older technicalknow-how is littleby littleemptiedof what articulated it in thepractical of individuals; formerly and, as itssheertechniques activity are withdrawn and turnedintomachinesin theirown right, it tendsitself-bereft of the to themand even imposedon them language of its procedures(whichare now returned by machines)-to be reduced to the conditionof some merelysubjective knowledge, or "instinctive" skills,whose status appearance of "intuition" takingon the quasi-secret remainsundetermined. of techniquein the 19thcentury, Thus theoptimization drawing on the artsand crafts forthemodels,pretexts, or constraints of itsmechanical inventions, leaves nothing behindforthe practices of dailylifebut a terrain sweptclear of meansor double a silenceszone bereft of like a domain of their own: folklore, something products of verbaldiscourseas well,henceforth, ofeven those"manipulative" languagesitused to wield. Yet suchpractices retaina kindofknowledge, one nowmissing itstechnical apparatus in thesight have no legitimacy (of whichmachineshave been made) and whose activities of a reigning as is the case withthe everyday skillsof cooking, rationality, productivist cleaning, sewing, and the like. Meanwhile, this remnantleftover by technological colonization acquires the value of purely"private" activity, becomes chargedwiththe of daily life,beginsto function beneaththe aegis of collectiveor symbolicinvestments individual particularity, is in short made over into somethinglike the active and of everything inthemargins stillstirring or interstices ofthedominant memory legendary or culturalnorms.These remaining, scientific or modes of practicalactivities privatized of daily life itself-are now doing-indices of singularity, poetic or tragicmurmur
op. cit., p. 495. s5Durkheim,Formes le1mentaires, of Belidor,Architecture S'ChristianWolff,Preface to the German translation 1740; quoted in hydraulique, Guillerme & Sebestik,p. 23. 52H. de Villeneuve, "Sur quelques prejugesdes industriels" (1832), quoted in Guillerme& Sebestik,p. 24.
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find intonovelortale,where introduced a newspaceofrepresentationmassively they thatoffiction, with those virtuosities andskills which science cannot peopled quotidian handleand which becomethesignatures ofthose micro-narratives ofeveryone's anonymous dailylife.Literature intotherepertory as suchis nowtransformed of practices whichlack scientific and they willlateralso find a privileged copyright; place in the tell in stories institutions or the on couch. patients psychiatric psychoanalyst's Thisis to saythat now"stories" ofall kinds endow with theregister of daily practices even offer the latter in or forms. they narrativity, though only fragmentarymetaphoric Thisis infact a continuation anda variation ofthediscontinuities in epistemes) (in spite in thelongtradition ofnarrative documents which from folk tales-thosestorehouses of schematic activities-allthewayto the"Descriptions of Arts"of theclassical period, in the form activities of narratives. In thistradition muststillbe presenttechnical numbered thecontemporary as wellas those micro-novels which areethnological novel, handicraft of or and so on. This and this tradition culinary descriptions techniques, that has a fundamental theoretical relevance to thestudy continuity suggests narrativity ofeveryday of thepractices life. ofsuchpractices innarration to a vaster must be linked The "return" yethistorically moreindeterminate that be calledtheaestheticization phenomenon might ofknowledge in technical know-how. of itsprocedures, thiskindof knowIndeed,stripped implied ofartistic ledgemostoften passesfor"taste,""tact,"even"ingenuity"-characteristics or biological intuition-akind ofknowledge which is unself-conscious, or at leastwhose self-consciousness cannot ofinner themastery Between and provide reflexivity. practice it occupies a "third"place, nondiscursive, a kind of theory, primitive, originary, to be differentiated and elucidated "source" of all the things by more"advanced" systems. This knowledge cannot be known. Its relationship to practice of givesit thestatus or fables, ofbeing ofan unconscious statements inboth cases, myths namely, knowledge: a knowledge individual do notreflect, itspresence without uponwhich subjects betraying are finally thetenants, and notthe it,suchthatthey beingable to appropriate merely oftheir ownknow-how. Their statements do notmakeusaskifknowledge is proprietors, inthem canonly be known other itis),butthis (we assume bysomeone knowledge present thanthespeakers ofpoets that ofthepractices of As with theskill orpainters, themselves. who illuminates it in his own dailylifecan onlybe known by wayof an interpreter discursive without itanymore than do. Thisknowledge therefore mirror, possessing they in the last instance from the unconsciousness of its belongsto nobody:it circulates to thereflexivity of itsnon-practitioners without on practitioners finally depending any individual and referential a mere condition of subject.It is an anonymous knowledge, fortechnical or learned possibility practices. Freudianpsychoanalysis offers a particularly version of thismodelof a striking ofreading bereft both of marginalized (ithasno proper knowledge, procedures language its own) and of anylegitimate thatcorresponds to it). (thereis no subject proprietor functions on a presupposition which has onlybeenvalidated Psychoanalysis byitsown
effects,namely, that there is a kind of knowledge,which is however unconscious; Patients'narratives reciprocally,it is the unconsciousalone thatknows.53 [Krankenge53A
constanttheme in Freud, althoughthe statusof this"knowledge" remainstheoretically undecided.
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tell thisparticular at interminable and indeedpsychoanalysts schichten] story length; since Freudhave learnedit againfrom own their know experience: "people already which in the position of the "subject the analyst, however, everything"-something to know," is supposed to articulate. It is as though who'ssupposed to permit them the of Diderothavebecomethevery ofa repressed and recontained metaphor workshops and manipulative" of which he spoke knowledge space in whichthat"experimental hold uponit. the discourse a psychoanalytic or "academy" might anticipates theory often clients (and abouteverybody else): "Somewhere, say abouttheir Analysts deep knowthetruth." "Somewhere": It is their butwhere? that know down,they practices oftalking iscertainly andwalking, etc.Knowledge but conduct, there, it-gestures, ways whose knowledge? and precise So rigorous is thisknowledge, indeed,thatall of the criteria ofscientificity seemto havebeentransported of intotherealm bagandbaggage theunconscious, itsfragments andeffects on theother andtactics side,ruses leaving only of thesortthatused to characterize the"arts"themselves. In this reason is inversion, now whatis unself-conscious and cannot and thein-fans-while speak-the unknown is little morethan the"improper" ofthat consciousness "enlightened" particlanguage ularknowledge. But thisreversal has moresignificant for theprimacy ofconsciousness consequences than it does for the traditional model of the relationship and between knowledge as well as the Freudianunconscious, a discourse.In the handicraft "workshops" is stored fundamental and primitive which runs aheadof away,a knowledge knowledge butwhich lacksanyculture ofitsown.Theanalyst discourse, proposes-for enlightened the"knowing" as for that ofhandicraft-the for oftheunconscious chance justas much inthis andfor distinctions between well words" Whatever stirs dimly synonyms. "proper of intotheboraddaylight of knowledge be "reflected" can at leastpertially bytheory of vicissitudes in of the three and "scientific" across centuries, So, spite language. the what remains transformation ofscientific consciousness or thesuccessive epistemes, same is a binary two on the one a between terms: referential and hand, relationship an explanatory on theother, discourse which forth into "uneducated" knowledge, brings of its dim source. This discourse is It the light the inverted "theory." representation andclassical of or retains itsancient (theorein) meaning "seeing/showing" "contemplating" and is thusvery or "en-lightening." precisely "en-lightened"
VI. KANT AND THE "ART" OF THINKING
that Kantshould raisethequestion oftherelationship an It is characteristic between or between art of doing(Kunst)and science(Wissenschaft), and (Technik) technique inthecourse which ofresearch moved from thestudy oftaste toa (Theorie) slowly theory ofjudgment On this itself.54 which leadsfrom taste to judgment, he trajectory critique of practical of a form which encounters art-as theparameter transcends knowledge in thistype form alike. Kantdiscerns of practical and aesthetic know-how knowledge whathe felicitously calls"logical tact"(logischle Thusinscribed within theorbit of Takt).
540n the evolutionfromthe projectof a Critiqueof Taste(1787) to the composition of the Critique of the (1790), see VictorDelbos, La Philosophiepratiquede Kant (Paris, 1969), pp. 416-422. Facultv of Jtudgerment Kant's text der Urteilskraft, secton43 ("Von der Kunst uiberhaupt"), ed. Werke, may be foundin the Kritik Weischedel (Insel, 1957), Vol. 5, pp. 401-402.
Everyday Practices
31
an aesthetic, the art of doing is placed beneath the sign of judgment,an "a-logical" conditionof thought."5 The traditional between"operativity" and "reflection" antinomy is here surmounted an artat theveryrootof thought, which,recognizing by a viewpoint makes judgmentthe "middle term"(Mittelglied) betweentheory and praxis.The art of thusconstitutes a synthetic betweenthe two. thinking unity Kant's examples deal specifically with daily practices: "The facultyof judgment . . . . Facultyof judgingthe dressof a chambermaid. transcendsunderstanding Faculty of judgingthe dignity the typeof ornament whichdoes appropriateto a givenbuilding, not contradict the end in view.""6Judgment does not bear solelyon social "decorum" (the elastic equilibriumof a networkof tacit contracts)but more generallyon the elements:itexiststhusonlyin theact ofconcretely relationship amongnumerous creating a new ensembleby a decorouscorrelation of theolder relationship witha supplementary it without element, just as one adds a red or an ochre to a picture,transforming it. This transformation of a givenstateof equilibrium intoanotherone is the destroying of an "art." principlecharacteristic Kant sharpens this definition which is by quoting a general discursiveauthority however always local and concrete: in my part of the world, he writes(in meinem the "commonman" (der gemeineMann) says (sagt) Gegend: in my regionor country), that magicians(Taschenspieler)exerciseknowledge(anybodycan do it who knowsthe trick), while acrobats (Seiltanzer) exercise an art.57 Walking a tightropeinvolves of everyinstantby recreating it withperpetually renewed maintainingan equilibrium a which is never and once for interventions; all, and preserving relationship acquired which ceaseless invention mustrenewwhileseemingto "perpetuate"it. Thus an art of all the more so since the practitioner himself knowledge findsan admirabledefinition, to this which he modifies without it. necessarily belongs equilibrium compromising In this for a new ensemble out of a and maintaining the capacity making harmony preexisting latter'sformalrelationship a variation of he in what is elements, throughout participates an artistic such would be the incessant taste within innovation of essentially production: practicalexperience. But thisart also designateseverything in scientific workitself whichdoes not merely the on and in the last instance of rules models and depend (indispensable) application remainswhatFreud willalso call "a matter of tact" (eine Sache des Takts)."5 Freudhad in mind diagnosticpractice,the matter of judgment calls which,in a practical intervention, into question a relationship or an equilibriumbetween a multitude of elements.For Freud as well as forKant, thisinvolvesan autonomousfaculty, one whichcan be refined but not taught: "Lack of judgment,"Kant tells us, "is veryproperlywhat is called and thisvice knowsno remedy.""'59 It is a vicewhichaffects sciencejust as much stupidity, as anything else.
SsSee A. Philonenko, Theorieetpraxis dans la pens6emoraleetpolitiquede Kant et de Fichteen 1793 (Paris, Heinrichs,Das Problemder Zeit in der praktischen 1968), pp. 19-24; Jiirgen PhilosophieKants (Kantstudien, Vol. 95, esp. pp. 34-43); and Paul Guyer, Kant and theClaims of Taste(Cambridge,1979), pp. 120-165,331350. S6Quoted in A. Philonenko,op. cit., p. 22, n. 17. section43. S7Kant, Kritikder Urteilskraft, S5Freud, GesammelteWerke, XIII, p. 330; XIV, p. 66; etc.; and see M. de Certeau, L'Ecriturede l'histoire (Paris, 1978), p. 310. der Reinen Vernunft, S"Kritik quoted in A Philonenko,op. cit., p. 21.
32
de Certeau
the faculty of Betweenunderstanding desires), (whichknows)and reason(which a between formal is thus a subjective imagina"arrangement," "equilibrium" judgment is relative to a onewhich It has theform ofa kind ofpleasure, tionand comprehension. in the concrete of than modeof exercise rather to exteriority, setting play experience a and It is a sense of universal between imagination understanding. principal harmony Without sense or common butone thatis "common": (Genmeinsinn) judgment. (Sittnn), various denies the division that between on thedetailsof a thesis ideological dwelling we least kind observe that this andthus their socialhierarchy, canat forms ofknowledge, in "ripping-off," theexample threeelements we havegiven aboveofa already present daily"tactic." contemporary inan ethical ofthis form ofjudgment invested theantecedent andpoetic act Perhaps whenitwas also a kind in theolderreligious of "tact,"the is to be sought experience, theethical in particular and poetic or creation of "harmony" practices, apprehension in an indefinite series of concrete a harmony of religare (tying up), of creating gesture acts. Newmanalso sees this as a kind of "tact." But as the resultof historical thekinds available to the which restricted ofequilibrium havesingularly displacements weregradually substituted aesthetic version of "tightrope walking," practices religious beenisolated had itself forthesereligious ones,and thisaesthetic increasingly practice it toGadamer, andscientificity Schleiermacher from from tothepoint where, operativity a whole"hermeneutic" tradition has becomethat to which appeals marginal experience assisted science. As a function ofgenius itscritique ofobjective to found bya particular Kantis theartofJ.S. Bach to theFrench Revolution), (all thewayfrom conjuncture theethical form where andaesthetic oftheconcrete at a crossroads religious positioned artistic creation and where act alone remains content (whileitsdogmatic disappears), which thesenseofa moral andtechnical act.Thistransitive retains combination, already oftaste"anda "metaphysic ofmanners," furnishes a "critique between in Kantwavers and practical modern reference an inaugural fortheanalysis of theaesthetic, ethical, nature of everyday know-how. Kant returns to the determination of "tact"in a piece of enlightened journalism, in theBerlinische in the verythick of theFrench Revolution Monatsschrift published inTheory ofa "proverbial "It MayBe Right 1793)on thesubject saying": (September, inPractice."o60 But It Won'tWork Thisimportant theoretical text thus takes as itsobject scholars a proverb, andexpresses inthelanguage itself ofthepress (and itstitle) (so that have calledthisa "popular work"ofKant).The text after is partofa debateinwhich, Kant's own repliesto Christian Gentz Garve'sobjections of Friedrich (1792),articles Wilhelm Rehber 1794)takeupthecommentary (December, (February, 1793)andAugust thatis, at one and the same timea whichis a Spruch, on thisparticular proverb, andan oracle(or enunciation a maxim authorizes which (wisdom), (judgment), proverb itself thatthisproverb the Is it as an effect of the Revolution receives knowledge). ofa verse(or Spruch) ofscripture, as around itself, philosophical pertinence mobilizing
60"Das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taugtaber nichtfiirdie Praxis." The text (in Kant, Werke,ed. was reeditedand presentedby Dieter Henrichwiththe entiredebate Weischedel, 1964, Vol. VI, pp. 127ff) and praxis,in Kant, Gentz, Rehberg,Uber Theorieund Praxis betweentheory 1793-1794on the relationshp are to thisremarkable dossier.See also thevaluableEnglishtranslation of Kant's (Suhrkamp, 1967); references text published separately:Kant On the Old Saw: Thatmay be right in Theorybut it won'tworkin Practice, introduction by G. Miller, trans.E.B. Ashton (Philadelphia,1974).
and a (practical)action-the very an (aesthetic) of tactlinksa (moral) freedom, creation,
Practices Everyday
33
in the ancienteditionsof Talmud,Koran, or Bible, the exegetical of knowledge debate aroundthisproverb also evokesthe New theoreticians?6'The philosophical in themidst ofscribes, or thepopular theme of theInfans of Testament speaking story ofchildhood the"wisethree-year-old."62 itis no longer a question Henceforth, forever, is translated as "old saw"),butrather or evenofold age (as whenKant'sGemeinspruch or "ordinary" whose ofanybody andeverybody, ofthe"common" man, (gemein) saying toproliferate themselves andcausesthem as so often callsintoquestion theintellectuals commentaries. It ratifies which Kant a fact, a principle. This common "saying"does not affirm in of the as the either of the insufficient interest theory practitioner sign, interprets in the theoretician himself. of theory development proper,or else of insufficient in is that of butitis to fail the fault not "Whenever tends itself, theory theory practice, that have learned from is notyetenough of the should been rather there that theory type theguise ofthree distinct manappears thecommon under form ofa three-act playwhere the man the whose and of to the characters businessman, world) opposition (the politician, of the and enables three Hobbes, Mendelssohn) analysis problems (Garve, philosophers hereis lessthe ofethics, constitutional order. What isessential law,andtheinternational within mental faculties of a of than the of harmony variety examples principle formal in in nor can neither be localized scientific The latter discourse, anyparticular judgment. it is an artof thinking, and one on aesthetic norin a particular expression: technique, in ithas the acrobat's as much as As which activity, theory. just ordinary depend practices that It theoretical andpractical is therefore not ethical, aesthetic, surprising significance. be discourseson practicesuch as those of Foucalt or Bourdieushouldultimately an at that art. But the most un-Kantian as to the arises, by point question governed boththeartof saying or doingtheory and thetheory of art natureof suchdiscourse, which is and the a discourse both narrative tact. itself, memory practice, of namely,
VII. STORYTELLING AND ITS TIMES
experience .
in the . "" Whateverhis examples, Kant organizeshis demonstration
As we stroll around these andcontemplate them from aboveorfrom below, practices which canneither be saidnor"taught," butonly we keepmissing something, "practiced." thefollowing ifan "art"can that abovesuggest The soundings conclusion, attempted no its there exists own enunciation of it, outside be exercise, it, specific only practiced, then must also represent a certain If the art of at is itself once language speaking practice. an artofdoing andan artofthinking, then itought toconstitute both andpractice theory thisartis storytelling. We must nowmaketworemarks on this simultaneously: subject, thefirst an observation, theseconda hypothesis forfuture research: is first of all indicative. are notmerely the activities, Practices, (1) A fiact practical Farfrom itself. oftheory construction oftheory. thevery objectsofstudy Theyorganize
ofRevolution,"Journal 61On Kant and the Revolution,see L.W. Beck, "Kant and theRight of theHistory of Ideas, XXXII, 3 (July-September 1971), pp. 411-422; and esp. L.W. Beck, ed., Kant on History(New York, 1963). to themand questioning 6"Luke, II, 41-50, on the child Jesus,"seated in the midstof the doctors,listening withthe Wise Three-year-old, a textanalyzed by Charles them." This theme is renewedin popular literature Nisard in Histoiredes livres populaires(Paris, 1854), Vol. II, pp. 16-19,quoted byG. Bollime, La Bible bleue (Paris, 1975), pp. 222-227. "3UberTheorieund Praxis, p. 41.
34
de Certeau
thestance ofWittgenstein with to"ordinary itself produced. (Herewe also rejoin respect language.") to clarify therelationship oftheory tothose that itas (2) In order procedures produce wellas to thosewhich are itsobjects ofstudy, a possibility comes to mind: a storytelling The narrativization discourse. ofpractices wouldthenbe a practical within the activity with textitself, itsownprocedures and tactics. since Marx and Freud limit Indeed, (to ourselves to modern authoritative arescarcely andinamy case, times), examples lacking; Foucaulttellsus that he does nothing buttellstories. As for the Bourdieu, thetaleplays of the the reference and for own In his works, part pro-logue system. scholarly point ofteninfiltrates narrative a non-narrative or through discourse, by wayof th title, sections of "cases," "lifestories," (suchas the analysis alternating grouptestimony, or as a kind of to offragments, interviews, etc.), running counterpintthetext (quotation remarks ofhistorical itplays throleofa ghostly double.Is it individuals, etc.),inwhich notthen time to recognize thescientific ofnarrative, which isthen seenlessas legitimacy remnant someineradicable remnant still to be but rather as a functional (a eradicated), within discourse? and to entertain the hypothesis thatnarrative is necessity theory indissociable ofpractices, from as itsprecondition as wellas itsproduction? anytheory Thiswould, for involve thetheoretical valueofthenovel, which instance, recognizing has been the principal zoo in whicheveryday have been kept since the practices of modern science.It wouldmeanrestoring the"scientific" of beginnings importance thatimmemorial which has always in telling consisted thestory of thisor that gesture If that werethecase,then thepopular talewouldturn outtooffer a model for practice. scientific discourse andnotsimply a collection ofrawmaterials andtexts tobe processed: it wouldlose itsstatus as a document that does notknow whatit is saying, summoned before a discourse which whatitdoesn't. knows suchstorytelling Now,on thecontrary, becomesa form of "know-how" the"other" perfectly adaptedto itsobject,no longer buta variant ofscientific anda source discourse oftheoretical This knowledge, authority. would accountforthe alternations and complicities, the procedural and homologies social interconnections, between artsofspeaking and artsofdoing:thesamepractices wouldbe produced in theverbalrealm, sometimes in thegestural; sometimes playing back and forth on thisalternation, with subtle tactics in either equally register, passing the ball back and forth-from to evening from to legends and chats, workday cooking therusesoflivedhistory to thoseofrecounted gossip,from history. Does such narrativity amountto a return to the "Descriptions" of the classical difference: the story or tale no longerhas the period? There is one fundamental to approximate as closelyas possiblean external obligation "reality" (a technical for or toaccredit itself ofthe"real."On thecontrary, instance), operation, byan exhibit the narrative a fictive itself from or at least generates space and distances reality,
from historical "once upon a time.. . ." But this pretendsto divorceitself conjuncture: is preciselya tacticin our earliersense, a way of scoring or takinga trick:the narrative does not merelydescribesuch a "hit," it effects one in its own right: a tighttheatrical, of "timing," in itcircumstances a skillat rope act, a matter (place and time),interlocutor, and displacing a preexisting set of manipulating, arranging, "placing" a givenutterance combined. relations,all are artfully
within whichtheory is gies" of Bourdieu, and tacticsin general,providetheoperations
to theory, or on itsdoorstep, the"procedures" ofFoucault, the"stratebeingexternal
Practices Everyday
35
butthat content is also part oftheartof"scoring": A narrative does havecontent, it "in former makesa detour or bythewayof a thepast("the other," times"), through in orderto seize an occasionand make an quotation(a "saying"or a proverb), is in the precarious balanceof things. Here too, discourse modification unexpected thanbywhatit tries to show.Nor moreby thewayit makesitsmoves, characterized effects rather than shouldone be takenin bywhatitsaysitdoes; storytelling produces than an of The rather It is art knows this speaking. public description. objects-narration for art from mere it to to know be well, (what you suffices gimmicks very distinguishing to know has able to do it)andfrom .. (what .): always revelation/vulgarizationeverybody of thesufficient and necessary in narrative and is something escapesthesecategories in terms in question. understood ofthestyle ofthetactics better in Foucault-suspense, This kindof artis easyto see at work ellipses, quotations, the public)and of unique an art of conjuncture situation, (the current metonymies, in short, an artof"scoring" of or political); occasions(either bymeans epistemological erudition not the reason historical fictions. Foucault's is immense) (obviously principle thisartof speaking which is also an artofthinking and of forhis efficacity, butrather on on the most rhetorical and a calculated He draws subtle procedures, doingthings. and analytic alternation tableaux(exemplary betweenrepresentational "narratives") in to an effect of conviction his chosen ones (theoretical distinctions) produce public, inwhich he successively and restructuring thefields intervenes systematically displacing an artofotherness, thesystem. Yet this remains narrative essentially practice modifying without newonesfor thelawsofconventional substituting historiographic "description" them.It does not have a discourse of its own, does not speak itself, but amounts and not all at once), to a of the non-locus da? there there (fort? essentially practice a an and of taxonomies it busily efface itself behind erudition set to pretending to a be librarian. Nietzschean dancer like a ballet pretending manipulates, laughter thehistorian's text. meanwhile spreads through scientific model in orderto determine the We therefore need a more explicit a the of takes of to tactics: where the narrative model theory practice specific relationship workof Marcel We willfind sucha modelin theimportant of narrating tactics. forem inancient on theconcept Greece:Cunning D6tienne Vernant of"metis" andJean-Pierre in and Greek Culture Society. Intelligence as Foucault hasin andanthropologist, as much orBourdieu, D6tienne Historian fully the his workdeliberately for He does not examine tales of ancient narrative. opted orboundary own.He rejects thebreak which Greeceinthenameofa valuealientotheir which or into on wouldturn them into"objects"ofknowledge, must objects knowledge of"mysteries" caverns in which a storehouse scientific investibe increased, challenges Nor does he presume real significance. the gationand waitsforit to disclosetheir revelation then existence ofsecrets behind these whose hidden stories, away progressive a specialposition are for fortheir Tales, stories, justifies poems,treatises, interpreter. what are the himalready do; they essentially they they gesture they practices: sayexactly to couplethem with that tellus what themselves Thereis thus no reason glosses signify. thatotherreality of which or to determine theyare the theymean unconsciously, ofoperations whose buta network thousands Theyarenothing metaphorical expression. them. and thehits or strikes to be madewithin of characters theforms embody as in a chessgamewhosefigures, and Within thisspace of textual rules, practices,
36
de Certeau
traditions havebeenexpanded to a properly historic the knows scale,D6tienne literary ofmoves made(justas thememory ofprevious thousands moves is peoplehavealready essentialin chess), but he also makesnew ones of his own, usingthispreexisting to tellstories ofhisowninturn. He re-cites thegreat tactical and in gestures, repertory ownlanguage. to tellwhat usetheir You want toknow order what they saycanonly they All right, I'll tellthem all overagain.Questioned mean[ce qu'ilsveulent the about dire]? is supposed ofa particular tohavesatdown Beethoven andre-played it. sonata, meaning oforalstorytelling as Jack thetraditions The sameis truefor them: Goodyhasanalyzed in "adjusting" whoseart consists the newcombination to recombination, repetition, and a specific circumstances public.64 specific does not merely thisor that Narrative thusdoes not express represent practices, is what to understand as youenter intothis and this move,itperforms them; youbegin Greektales in orderto speak Greek realm. This is whyD6tienneends up telling Greeknarratives on thecontemporary hisearlier booksreperform stageinan practices: essential He them from to outline their effort museographic thereby protects moves.65 reification an artwhich hasforgotten after held byexercising historiography long having itinhigh an artwhose for other has esteem, (at least, importance cultures) anthropology fromLUvi-Strauss' to Bauman and Sherzer's begun to rediscover, Mythologiques work thus theart ofstorytelling. D6tienne's namely, exploits ofSpeaking.66 Ethnography andwhat anthrowhat usedtopractice terrain between thatintermediate historiography wins love of an and at the as alien reexamines last, here, object; storytelling pology and turns an art of evolveshis twists The tale-teller relevance. scientific exercising checkerboard ofliterature theimmense inchess, he describes Like theknight thinking. like he hisfables of his a of the narrative "interprets" repertory; pianist, byway gambit two distinct theirveryperfomance. This performance, indeed,emphasizes through dance and foundprivileged in whichthe Greek art of thinking expression: figures the of the itself. thevery exercized narratives combat-in short, by writing figures buta collection oftales.67 It is sensenothing bookis inthis Detienneand Vernant's in and ofintelligence which is somehow devoted to a form always "submerged practice," of in particular characterized a combination intuition, shrewdness, by anticipapractice all kinds ofsupplementary and a a senseofthebestchance, skills, tion,mental agility, Greek of experience.68 certainmaturity constant history, Extraordinarily throughout theideal image(and theory) thatGreekthought madefor from even though missing andstrategems, andbythe is related to everyday tactics metis knacks, itself, byitsskills, all from to ruse. of the know-how conducts that it way range governed, from thisdescription, notmerely becausethey Three features need to be retained can from kinds ofactions, butalsobecause servesharply metis other todifferentiate they
dans les socidtisavec ou sans6criture: la transmission du Bagre," 64Jack Goody, "Mimoire et apprentissage in L'Homme, XVII, 1 (January-March 1977), pp. 29-52; and see also Goody, The Domestication of theSavage Mind (Cambridge, 1977). 'SMarcel D6tienne, Les Jardinsd'Adonis (Paris, 1972); Dionysos mis a mort(Paris, 1977); La Cuisinedu sacrifice(in collaborationwithVernant:Paris, 1979). in theEthnography ofSpeaking(Cambridge,1974); and "CSee R. Bauman and J. Sherzer,eds., Explorations D. Sudnow, ed., Studiesin Social Interaction (New York, 1972). La MAtis 67D6tienne and Vernant,Les rusesde l'intelligence. des Grecs (Paris, 1974). Englishtranslation, in Greek Cultureand Society,(AtlanticHighlands,N.J., 1978). CunningIntelligence "Ibid., pp. 9-10.
Practices Everyday
37
the tales in whichmetisis celebrated. These are the equally serve to characterize andwith a paradoxical relation with theoccasion with threefold ofmetis itself, disguise, On theone hand, on the"right kairos-in order metis counts moment"-the invisibility. of time.On theother itspractice to play upon it: thisis essentially hand,it seeksto itsown masksand metaphors, theproper locus.Finally, it thussubverting perpetuate intoitsownact,as though without to revanishes lostin whatitperforms, anymirror of metisare equally Yet thesethreefeatures presentit: it has no imageof itself. ofstorytelling andmaysuggest a kind to D6tienne characteristic itself of"supplement" and thewayinwhich theform ofpractical and Vernant: bythem intelligence analyzed iftheartofnarrativity is to be havesometheoretical they analyzeitmust relationship, as something likea metis in itsownright. considered In the balance of powerin whichit seeks to intervene, metisis the "absolute of over the othergods. It is a principle weapon," the one thatgave Zeus mastery with force. it themaximum effect theminimum And,as we know, economy: obtaining of a wholeaesthetic: restriction defines since themultiplication ofeffects bya progressive thevery which arts as well meansis also,butfor different rule reasons, governs practical or song. as thepoeticartsofspeech, painting, at itsmainof economy metis without This principle really getting helpsto frame The trick or reversal whichleads thisoperation from its pointof departure spring. of effects) (multiplication dependson the (weakness,lack of force)to itsconclusion of ofa certain characterized mediation bythegradual process knowledge-aknowledge itsacquisition ofitsparticular The and thenever-ending accumulation understandings. with the textssee thisas a matter of theold is contrasted of "age"; the"experience" and many of youth. is made up of many distinct instants This knowledge "rashness" no general or abstract no proper "locus."It statement, heterogeneous objects.It knows is essentially are inseparable from thetemporal a memory,69 whosecontents occasions drawson a whichprovidedthem,whose singularities it interweaves. This memory them multitude ofevents, without everpossessing (each anyofthem circulating through and weighs one is past,itsplace lost,itstimeshattered), and anticipates "themultiple antecedent or merely possibleparticularities.70 by combining paths of the future" offorces a certain can be introduced into thecurrent balance duration Thereby temporal in order to itas a to modify on that time which is favorable it:metis counts accumulated of the of Yet its remains over unfavorable memory way prevailing configurations space. hidden(without a place specific to it) until themoment-the "favorable" or "right" moment-in whichit can revealitself. And the manner remains of its revelation of effort to in it is the itself duration. The very bury temporal, though opposite any in bolt of this forth the memory opportunity. gleams lightning to metis' to accumulate and to take Encyclopedic, owning capacity pastexperiences in stock oflogical is the its smallest spacewithin possibilities, knowledge lodged possible the opportunity, or kairos.The latter intothe condenses the maximum knowledge minimum time.Reducedto itsminimal format-asingle actcapableoftransforming a concrete has of the whole situation-this stone encyclopedia something philosopher's
intheolder sense oftheterm, as designating a presence toplurality oftimes which isnot limited 69"Memory" to thepastalone. inquotesare borrowed from Detienne andVernant, 7"Expressions op. cit.,pp. 23-25.
38
de Certeau
between evokesthelogical motif ofan identity and aboutit! Indeed,it explicitly point the instant is its concentrathat here extension is and circumference, temporal, except theindefinite thecoincidence between we thus translate tion.Provided spaceintotime, and the punctual moment of their would of experiences circumference recapitulation modelfor thekairos. an accurate theoretical offer ourselves to theseinitial We may now, limiting elements, proposea schematic of the of "move" the as it from itsinitial represented by metis, moves representation type to its terminal one of of force-around effect. The (IV)-maximum (I)-minimum point this: like wouldlook something process
I II
thelessforce themoreeffect
themorememory thelesstime
Iv
III
betweenspace and time (1) A difference imposesthefollowing paradigmatic sequence: in the initial configuration of space (I), the world of memory(II) intervenes at the "rightmoment" (III), producingspatial modifications (IV). This sequence has, at the in-between is time,an alien element beginningand in the end, a spatial organization;
inII, knowledge andmemory toaugment; inIII, time In I, force while diminishes, begin These increases and in IV effects decreases are while combined in diminishes, augment. the that we have connections: such inverse following proportions, and memory -from I to II, the less forcethereis, themoreknowledge is needed; and memory there -from II to III, the moreknowledge is, thelesstimeis needed; willbe the effects. -from III to IV, the less timethereis, the moreconsiderable inallthepractices a nodal ofdaily is so crucial as well as inthose The kairos of life, point theaccompanying that we must examine these first in indications narratives, "popular" detail.Yet "opportunity" subverts itsowndefinitions, sinceitcan never always greater from or a specific itis notsomefact be abstracted a conjuncture detachable operation: ina chain from the"move"which itworks itself inscribed ofevents, it;as itfinds exploits to distort their It willthus ina given relations. be registered as a twist situation produced of qualitatively dimensions thestandard (of which by the conjugation heterogeneous of contraries and contradictions are onlytwo specific This wily forms). oppositions can be discerned with thesetofindicators relations provided bytheproportional process tothose listed relations arecomparable mirror effects curvature, above;those (inversion, in perspective thatallow different or tricks reduction, spaces to be magnification) with in thesequence that within a single dealing "opportuexcept painting: juxtaposed and space,equilibrium are rather dimensions suchheterogeneous bytime given nity," ofrelationships. inversion theproportional and act,etc., and involve differences whichentertain inverted relations withone Among such qualitative themostsignificant wouldseemto fallintotwotypes, which are characterized another, ofsequential kinds by twodistinct reading:
Practices Everyday
39
from elsewhere and producing theshift theone spatial from stateto thenext. coming Thereis, in short, an irruption of time between twostates ofequilibrium:
SPACE
II
TIME
IV
III
between and (2) A difference state)and doing(a production being(an established combines with thepreceding.one. Thisdistinction transformation) plays uponan opposition betweenthe visibleand the invisible, without withit. altogether coinciding Accordingto this new axis, the following paradigmatic sequence is established: of forces(I), as well as an invisible accumgiven an initialvisibleconfiguration act on thepartof thismemory ulationin the area of memory (II), a punctual (III) in theinitial visible established order of (IV). The first produces consequences segment the seriesinvolves in which invisible eludes the surveilsituations, existing knowledge lance of visiblepower;thisstaticsegment is thenfollowed one. by an operational thetwin-cycles ofbeing/doing andvisible/invisible we havethefollowing Distinguishing representation:
BEING
III These combinations may recapIV thenbe schematically
I INVISIBLE I IV IIItulated as follows:
then be combinations as follows: These schematically may recapitulate

APPEARING
DOING
TIME
(I) Place
(II) Memory (III) Kairos
(IV) Effects
+1
+
+
the spatialtransformation. It produces, mediates at the "opportune moMemory ment"(kairos), a breakwhich also inaugurates new.It is thestrangeness, the something aliendynamic, itthepower ofmemory which totransgress thelawofthelocalspace gives in question:from and ever-shifting out of unfathomable there comesa sudden secrets,
40
de Certeau
a givenlocal order.The closureof theseriesthusdependson a visible "strike" to modify of the latteris time transformation of a givenspatial organization: yetthe precondition in its with alien laws with invisible time its resources, which, a surpriseblow, itself, fromthe proprietary distribution of space itself. snatchessomething This schema, which is found in many narratives, would be something like their can take on comic when It the moment"minimal unity." form, memory-at right Good suddenlyreversesa situation,afterthe fashionof: "But ... you are myfather! This is to due the return of a heavens, mydaughter!" pirouette temporality upon quasiof characterswhichfailed to take it into account. There is also a spatial distribution of the past disrupts hierarchical order : variant,in whichthe resurgence mystery-story from "So he's the murderer!"Miracles also fallintothispattern: out of anothertime,a time profoundly risesa "god" endowedwiththe characteristics "other," theresuddenly of individual in religious of memory, a silentencyclopedia acts,a figure which, narratives, who that of those have no faithfully space or land, and so represents "popular" memory of suchrecourseto an alien world, have time-"Be patient!"Numerousare thevariants will whichcan be expectedto deliverthe blow that order.Yet all changean established such variants,enlarged into symbolicand narrative projections,may well be but the of dailylifeas theysearchforthechanceto transform shadows cast by thepractices their loci by means of memory. Still a finalpoint, the most decisive one, mustbe clarified: how is timearticulated to effect itsbreak-through? In upon organizedspace? How does it use the"opportunity" of memory into a space whichis alreadyan short,how can we thinkthe implanation of tactics, themoment of art. For theimplantation organizedwhole? This is themoment itself: are "grasped,"not is neither"localized" nordetermined bymemory opportunities thatis, byexternal in which created. They are presented circumstances bya conjuncture, that mightbe only the trainedeye can perceive the elementsof a new configuration detail. One finaltouch,and thetrick of one supplementary by the intervention wrought in the realmof to be reestablished for is lacking will be turned:only a trifle harmony make whichthesecircumstances suddenly preciousindeed, practice,a scrap, a remnant of memory to supply.Yet whatever odds and ends we can expect the invisible treasury intoa configuration itwillhave to be inserted thisstorehouse, selectedfrom the fragment own unstablemakeshift imposed fromwithout,beforeit makes the latterover into its it lacks any ready-made harmony. In the form memorytakes in practical activity, to eventsitsforces according organizationwhichcould be applied as such; itmarshalls it findsa home onlyin chance encounters, into opportunities: artfully surprises turning and in the space of the other. does Like those birdsthatalwayslay their eggsin thenestsof otherspecies,memory from form and its It receives its its own. which is not its work in a locus implantation whichgivesa new element even ifthemissing externalcircumstances, detail,thisminute is Its mobilization own invention. is its whole to the sense inseparable from plot, from its alterabilityto intervene draws its alteration;indeed, memory verycapacity itself feature:it forms mobile, adaptable, withouta fixedlocus. It has thispermanent whichit now loses fromtheother(fromcircumstance), (and its "capital") by emerging change,both in itself(since its (this being no more than a memory):whencea twofold ofitsown exercise)and ofitsobject,retained is thecondition modification onlywhenitis and can onlybe foralter-ation wastesawaywhenit loses thiscapacity lost. Thus memory
Practices Everyday
41
from constructed events ofit,intheexpectation that independent may something happen willbe different from which andaliento this Far from either theshrine or present. being a belief in in theashcanofthepast,itthrives and lies wait for upon possibilities vigilantly them. intherealm oftime towhat the"arts" ofwarfare aretospace,the"art"of Equivalent a to inhabit of the the other without it,andto memory develops capacity space possessing this alteration of without in the itself Such force is notthe exploit space losing process. same as power(although in rather ithas itsnarratives the latter's be used service): may often beentermed drawn from or collective individual "authority"-whatever, memory, or enablesa reversal, a transformation oforder orplace,a transition to the "authorizes" a for for or Hence discourse. the different, qualitatively "metaphor" practice discerning in all popular use of "authorities" traditions. comesfrom another Memory place,it is itcan dis-place. "besideitself," The tactics ofitsartdepend on these andon properties, In its disquieting I to would like of some itsprocefamiliarity. conclusion, emphasize which those ineveryday ofalteralife: theplay dures, especially organize "opportunities" the of an tion, and, as a kindof generaleffect, metonymic practice singularities, and wily mobility. unsettling is controlled not merely (1) Practical memory by a multiple playof alter-ation, becauseitis constituted and marked andconsists in a collection encounters, byexternal of thesuccessive blazonsand tattoos oftheother, butalso becauseeventhose invisible are called back to light The dynamics of this onlyby newcircumstances. inscriptions with those oftheoriginal is "recall"are consistent indeed, inscription. Perhaps, memory butthis"recall"or "call" oftheother, a body whoseimprint nothing already overprints altered this andoriginary secret, contacts, unconsciously byit.Then,at certain deeper, would"come backout." Memory is in anycase played as a writing bycircumstances, itssounds to thetouch ofhands: itis a senseoftheother. Notunsurprisingly pianoyields itis developed of"traditional" oroflove-and societies then, byrelationship-whether in theprogressive of space and of theproper locus.It does autonomization atrophies more thanregister, it replies, untilthatmoment when,its fragile lost,and mobility henceforth unfit forfresh itcan onlyrepeat itsfirst overand over. alter-ation, replies This system of responsible alter-ation moment thedelicate organizes, by moment, touchwhereby an intervention intoa setofcircumstances is achieved. The opportunity, seizedon thewing, is thus thetransformation ofa combat intoa response, a essentially "reversal" ofthat which wasanticipated without everhaving beenforeseen: the surprise due toan event, andfleeting, andtransformed into is reversed or inscription rapid speech and aptness of the retort are indissociable from a gesture.Tit fortat: the liveliness on thesuccessive instants oftime, a vigilance andfrom which must be all the dependence sincethere is no proper them. we can protect ourselves from placein which greater In whatever it happens, it is butone (2) Responseis singular, system particular. detail-a gesture, a singleword-yet so appropriate thatthe whole supplementary situation is thereby reversed. Yet whatelse couldmemory be expected to completely
furnish? It is made up of nothing butsuchdetails,ofbrokenpieces,particular fragments: such are memories.Each one, whenitemergesagainsta surrounding is partof darkness, a whole whichhas vanished.Its luminosity is thatof metonymy. Whatis left of a painting is onlythisdeep blue, a deliciouswound;of a body,onlythisbrightness in theeyes,or this have the forceof demonstratives: grainywhitenessbeneath a curl. Such particularities
42
de Certeau
thisman bentover in the distance.., thatsmellwhosesourcewe could no longer in memory which function as intense locate... Chiselled details, already singularities, an opportunity to intervene: thesametiming in do whencircumstances they givethem thesameartful relation between a concrete detail anda conjuncture, bothoccasions, the ofsomenew latter as thetrace ofa pastevent, or as theproduction alternately figuring harmony. itsmobility, are is doubtless suchthatdetails (3) The strangest aspectof memory form neveridentical to themselves: nevermereobjects(in which theycouldnot be the missing nor retained),nor fragments (since theyat once furnish background), norevenstableentities fresh totalities are notself-sufficient), (sincethey (sinceevery alters has something ofthe remembrance them).The "space" ofthis placeless mobility ofa cybernetic a mere world. disembodied (butthereference subtlety Probably provides notan explanation) is theoriginal model ofthearts ofpractice, or memory description, to restore, with of thatmetis which seizesitskairos to placesinvested organized power, oftime itself. thepeculiar pertinence into which is introduced in seemsthesameinthestructure thedetail that Everything and modifies its equilibrium. Those contemporary reality changesits wholedynamic scientific which reinsert intoits"socialframework,"7' thoseclerical memory analyses Frances of theMiddleAges ofwhich Yates speaksin TheArtofMemory,72 techniques themodem and which oftime into an memory byartfully prepared spatialization turning with architectural was able to cometo terms detours, memory's composition-neither the ways in whichthe kairos-instant of indiscretion, althoughboth demonstrate been mastered ofscientific andthestrategic discourse, bythespatialization poison-has ofcontrol. reasonsforthisform Scientific constitution ofa proper locuswriting-the overand overagainreturns to the of an and observable readable normality temporality thecareful maintenance No surprises: ofspacewilleliminate time's scandals. system. return over and over and andnot Nonetheless, they again, noiselessly surreptitiously, leastwithin thisvery scientific itself: not in the form of the of activity merely practices life which on even without their in own but also the discourse, everyday go existing sly and gossipy of everyday To see this youwouldhaveto do more practices storytelling. thananalyzetheforms or repetitive structures of suchstories thatis also a (although in is at a know-how work these where the of all features stories, task): necessary practical the"artofmemory" itself canbe detected. We needto makean inventory ofthemoves which and tricks transform thelegendary stories ofa collectivity ortheprivate conversations ofdailylifeintoso many as is so often thecase,they havefor the "opportunities"; mostpartbeenstudied wemay hazard a hypothesis as a starting Still, bytherhetoricians. for inthat future that artwhich narrates thearts andpractices, thetactics, of study: point in it is the latter which are at and the art of life can be work, dailylife, reality daily in thetalestoldaboutit.The practice ofD6tienne witnessed and Vernant-totellthe of thatlabyrinthine which ofstories-isan is their objectintheform story intelligence ofhistory which is at one andthesametime itsart one, a discursive exemplary practice and itsdiscourse.
This is an old story. Aristotle himself,scarcely a tight-ropewalker, enjoyed of all formsof discourse.He had losing himselfin this most subtle and labyrinthine
7'See Maurice Halbwachs, Les cadres sociaux de la mjmoire(The Hague, 1975). 72See Frances Yates, The Artof Memory.
Practices Everyday
43
I cometo likestories more at theage ofthemetis: olderandlonelier, arrived "as I grow and more."73 His justification was apt; like the agingFreud,he had a connaisseur's todo so: admiration for thetactthat reinvents andfor theartthat usessurprise harmony "In a sense,the loverof myths fora myth is madeup of many is a loverof wisdom, "74 astonishments. and CarlLovitt Translated Jameson byFredric
ed. Rose,Teubner, 668. 7"Aristotle, 1886, Fragmenta, fragment A, 2, 982 b 18. Metaphysics, "4Aristotle,
"9
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Certeau On The Oppositional Practices of Everyday Life 1980

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Certeau On The Oppositional Practices of Everyday Life 1980

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On the Oppositional Practices of Everyday Life Author(s): Michel De Certeau, Fredric Jameson and Carl Lovitt Reviewed work(s):

Practices ofEveryday On The Oppositional Life

de sociologue, op. cit., pp. 290-299. 29Le m6tier

Forms of ReligiousLife and Freud's Totemand Taboo. They Durkheim's Elementary

ofman";43and,on theother to the"observers ofthe attractive hand,that literature;42

constanttheme in Freud, althoughthe statusof this"knowledge" remainstheoretically undecided.

and a (practical)action-the very an (aesthetic) of tactlinksa (moral) freedom, creation,

in the . "" Whateverhis examples, Kant organizeshis demonstration

within whichtheory is gies" of Bourdieu, and tacticsin general,providetheoperations

to theory, or on itsdoorstep, the"procedures" ofFoucault, the"stratebeingexternal

III These combinations may recapIV thenbe schematically

I INVISIBLE I IV IIItulated as follows:

then be combinations as follows: These schematically may recapitulate

(II) Memory (III) Kairos

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