THE PRACTICEOF EVERYDAY LIFE

Michelde Certeau

Tianslated Steven by Rendall

U N I V E R S I T YO F C A L I F O R N I A P R E S S Berkele.v'Los Angeles London

GeneralIntroduction

H r s E S S A vs p a r t o f a c o n t i n u i n g i n v e s t i g a t i o n r of the ways in which users-commonly assumedto be passive and guided by establishedrules-operate. The point is not so much to discuss this elusive yet fundamental subject as to make such a discussionpossible;that is, by meansof inquiriesand hypotheses, to indicatepathways for further research.This goar wilr be achieved if everyday pru.tic.r, "ways of operating"or doing things, no longer appearas merely the o b s c u r eb a c k g r o u n do f s o c i a la c t i v i t y ,a n d i f a b o d y o f t h e o r e t i c aq u e s l tions, methods,categories, and perspectives, penetratingthis obscur_ by i t y , m a k e i t p o s s i b l eo a r t i c u l a t e h e m . t t T h e e x a m i n a t i o no f s u c h p r a c t i c e s o e s n o t i m p l y d a return to indi_ viduality. The social atomism which over the past three centurieshas served as the fristorical axiom of social analysis posits an erementary u n i t - t h e i n d i v i d u a l - o n t h e b a s i so f w h i c h g r o u p s are supposedo be t formed and to which they are supposedto be always reducible. This a x i o m ' w h i c h h a s b e e n c h a t e n g e db y m o r e t h a n a century of sociological, economic,anthropological, nd psychoanalytic a research,,(al_ t h o u g h i n h i s t o r y t h a t i s p e r h a p sn o a r g u m e n t ) p l a y s no part in this study' Analysis shows that a relation (always sociar) determines its terms, and not the reverse,and that each individual is a locus in which an incoherent (and often contradictory) prurality of such relational determinations interact. Moreover, the questionat hand concerns modes o f o p e r a t i o n o r s c h e m a t ao f a c t i o n , a n d n o t d i r e c t l y t h e s u b j e c t s( o r persons) ho are their authorsor vehicles. w I t c o n c e r n sa n o p e r a t i o n a l logic whose models may go as far back as the age-ord rusesof fishesand insectsthat disguise or transform themselves in order to survive, and which has in any casebeenconceared the form by of rationality currently d o m i n a n t i n w e s t e r n c u r t u r e .T h e p u r p o s eo f this work is to make explicit the systems of operational combination (/e.s c.ombinqtoires d'oprations)which also composea "culture," and to bring to right the models of action characteristicof userswhose status as the dominated
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element in society (a status that does not mean that they are either passive or docile) is concealedby the euphemistic term '.consumers." Everydaylife inventsitself by poat'hingin countless ways on the property of others.

L Con.sumerprodut'lion Since this work grew out of studies of "popular culture" or marginal groups,r the investigationof everydaypracticeswas first delimited negatively by the necessity not locating cultural dffirent'e in groups assoof ciated with the "counter-culture"-groups that were already singledout, often privileged, and already partly absorbed into folklore-and that were no more than symptoms or indexes.Three further, positive determinations were particularly important in articulating our research.

Usage,or consumption Many, often remarkable,works have sought to study the representations of a society,on the one hand, and its modes of behavior, on the other. B u i l d i n g o n o u r k n o w l e d g eo f t h e s es o c i a l p h e n o m e n a ,i t s e e m sb o t h p o s s i b l ea n d n e c e s s a r yo d e t e r m i n et h e u s e t o w h i c h t h e y a r e p u t b y t groups or individuals. For example,the analysisof the imagesbroadcast by television(representation) and of the time spent watching television ( b e h a v i o r )s h o u l d b e c o m p l e m e n t e d y a s t u d y o f w h a t t h e c u l t u r a l b c o n s u m e r" m a k e s ' o r " d o e s " d u r i n g t h i s t i m e a n d w i t h t h e s e i m a g e s . T h e s a m eg o e sf o r t h e u s e o 1 ' u r b a ns p a c e , h e p r o d u c t sp u r c h a s e d n t h e t i supermarket,the storiesand legendsdistributed by the newspapers, and soon. T h e " m a k i n g " i n q u e s t i o ni s a p r o d u c t i o n , a p o i 1 s i s 2 - b u t a h i d d e n one, becauseit is scatteredover areasdefined and occupied by systems o f " p r o d u c t i o n " ( t e l e v i s i o n , r b a n d e v e l o p m e n t . o m m e r c e ,e t c . ) , a n d u c becausethe steadily increasingexpansion of these systems no longer leaves"consumers" any place in which they can indicate what they make or do with the products of thesesystems. a rationalized,expansionist To and at the sametime centralized, clamorous,and spectacular production corresponds another producfion. called "consumption." The latter is devious, it is dispersed,but it insinuatesitself everywhere,silently and almost invisibly, becauseit does not manifest itself through its own

GENERAI, INTRODUCTION

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products,but rather through its u.,c-r's using the products imposed by o.f a dominant economicorder. For instance,the ambiguity that subverted from within the Spanish "success"in imposing their own culture on the indigenous colonizers' t I n d i a n s s w e l l k n o w n . S u b m i s s i v ea n d e v e nc o n s e n t i n go t h e i r s u b j e c i , often macleo/the rituals. representatlons, tion, the Indians nevertheless and laws imposed on them something quite different from what their conquerors had in mind; they subvertedthem not by rejectingor altering foreign to them. but by using them with respectto ends and references the systemthey had no choice but to accept.They were other within the very colonization that outwardly assimilated them; their use of the dominant social order deflectedits power, which they lacked the means to challenge;they escapedit without leaving it. The strength of their differencelay in procedures of "consumption." To a lesserdegree,a similarambiguity creepsinto our societies through the use made by the "common people" of the culture disseminated nd imposed by the a "elites"producing the language. (taught by preachers. The presence and circulation of a representation e d u c a t o r sa n d p o p u l a r i z e r s s t h e k e y t o s o c i o e c o n o m i a d v a n c e mn t ) , a c e tells us nothing about what it is for its users.We must first analvze its manipulationby userswho are not its makers. Only then can we gauge the differenceor similarity betweenthe production of the image and the production hidden in the processof its utilization. secondary Our investigation is concernedwith this difference.It can use as its theoretical model the constut'tion of individual sentences with an establishedvocabulary and syntax. In linguistics."performance" and "competence"are different: the act of speaking (with all the enunciative strategies that implies) is not reducibleto a knowledgeof the language. By adopting the point of view of enunciation-which is the subject of o u r s t u d y - w e p r i v i l e g et h e a c t o f s p e a k i n g ; c c o r d i n gt o t h a t p o i n t o f a view,speaking operateswithin the field of a linguistic system;it elfects an appropriation, or reappropriation, of language by its speakers;it establishes present relative to a time and place;and it positsa contract a with the other (the interlocutor) in a network of placesand relations. These four characteristics ofthe speechactr can be found in many other (walking, cooking, etc.). An objectiveis at leastadumbratedby practices thisparallel,which is, as we shall see,only partly valid. Such an objective assumes that (like the Indians mentioned above) usersmake (bricolent)

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innumerable nd infinitesimal ransformations f and within the domia t o a nant cultural economyin order to adapt it to their own interests nd their own rules. We must determinethe procedures,bases,effects,and possibilities this collectiveactivity. of

The procedures everydaycreativity of A secondorientation of our investigationcan be explained by reference to Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish. ln this work, instead of analyzing the apparatus exercisingpower (i.e., the localizable,expansionist, repressive, and legal institutions),Foucault analyzesthe mecha(disposllls) that have sappedthe strengthof theseinstitutionsand nisms " surreptitiously reorganizedthe functioning of power: "miniscule techn i c a l p r o c e d u r e s c t i n g o n a n d w i t h d e t a i l s ,r e d i s t r i b u t i n g d i s c u r s i v e a a space in order to make it the means of a generalized"discipline" (surveillant'e).o This approach raisesa new and different set of problems to be investigated.Once again, however, this "microphysics of power" p r i v i l e g e st h e p r o d u c t i v ea p p a r a t u s( w h i c h p r o d u c e st h e " d i s c i p l i n e " ) , even though it discerns in "education" a system of "repression" and s h o w s h o w , f r o m t h e w i n g s a s i t w e r e , s i l e n t t e c h n o l o g i e s e t e r m i n eo r d short-circuit institutional stage directions. If it is true that the grid of "discipline" is everywherebecoming clearer and more extensive,it is all the more urgent to discover how an entire society resistsbeing reduced ( t o i t , w h a t p o p u l a r p r o c e d u r e sa l s o" m i n i s c u l e "a n d q u o t i d i a n )m a n i p u late the mechanisms disciplineand conform to them only in order to of evadethem, and finally, what "ways of operating" form the counterpart, s o n t h e c o n s u m e r ' s( o r " d o m i n e e ' s " ? )s i d e , o f t h e m u t e p r o c e s s e t h a t o r g a n i z e h e e s t a b l i s h m e n tf s o c i o e c o n o m io r d e r . t o c These "ways of operating" constitute the innumerable practices by meansof which usersreappropriatethe spaceorganizedby techniques of sociocultural production. They pose questions at once analogous and c o n t r a r y t o t h o s e d e a l t w i t h i n F o u c a u l t ' sb o o k : a n a l o g o u s , n t h a t t h e i g o a l i s t o p e r c e i v e n d a n a l y z et h e m i c r o b e - l i k eo p e r a t i o n s r o l i f e r a t i n g a p within technocraticstructuresand deflectingtheir functioning by means o f a m u l t i t u d e o f " t a c t i c s " a r t i c u l a t e di n t h e d e t a i l s o f e v e r y d a y l i f e ; contrary, in that the goal is not to make clearer how the violence of order is transmutedinto a disciplinarytechnology,but rather to bring to light the clandestineforms taken by the dispersed,tactical, and makeshift creativity of groups or individuals already caught in the nets of

GENERAL INTRODLICTION

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"discipline." Pushed to their ideal limits, theseproceduresand rusesof which is the subject composethe network of an antidiscipline5 consumers of this book.

The formal structure of practice It may be supposedthat theseoperations-multiform and fragmentary, relativeto situations and details, insinuated into and concealedwithin whose mode of usagethey constitute,and thus lacking their own devices ideologiesor institutions-conform to certain rules. In other words, there must be a logic of these practices.We are thus confronted once againby the ancient problem: What is an art or "way of making"? From w t h e G r e e k st o D u r k h e i m , a l o n g t r a d i t i o n h a s s o u g h t t o d e s c r i b e i t h p r e c i s i o nh e c o m p l e x ( a n d n o t a t a l l s i m p l e o r " i m p o v e r i s h e d " ) u l e s r t F that could account for these operations.6 rom this point of view, " p o p u l a rc u l t u r e , " a s w e l l a s a w h o l e l i t e r a t u r ec a l l e d" p o p u l a r , " t t a k e on a different aspect: they present themselvesessentiallyas "arts of m a k i n g "t h i s o r t h a t , i . e . , a s c o m b i n a t o r yo r u t i l i z i n g m o d e s o f c o n sumption. These practices bring into play a "popular" ratio, a way of thinking investedin a way of acting, an art of combination which cannot bedissociated from an art of using. ln order to grasp the formal structureof thesepractices,I have carried out two sorts of investigations. The first, more descriptivein nature, has according to their concerned certain ways of making that were selected valuefor the strategyof the analysis,and with a view to obtaining fairly differentiated variants: readers' practices, practices related to urban spaces, utilizations of everyday rituals, re-usesand functions of the memorythrough the "authorities" that make possible(or permit) everyday practices,etc. In addition, two related investigationshave tried to tracethe intricate forms of the operationsproper to the recompositonof (the Croix-Roussequarter in Lyons) by familial practices, the on a space o n e h a n d , a n d o n t h e o t h e r , t o t h e t a c t i c so f t h e a r t o f c o o k i n g ,w h i c h simultaneously organizes network of relations,poetic ways of "making a do" (brit'olage), and a re-useof marketing structures.8 The secondseriesof investigations has concernedthe scientificliterature that might furnish hypotheses allowing the logic of unsellconscious thought to be taken seriously.Three areas are of specialinterest.First, sociologists, anthropologists,and indeed historians(from E. Goffman to P . B o u r d i e u ,f r o m M a u s s t o M . D t i e n n e ,f r o m J . B o i s s e v a i no E . O . t

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GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Laumann) have elaborateda theory of such practices, mixtures of rituals and makeshifts (bricolages), manipulations of spaces,operators of networks.e Second, in the wake of J. Fishman's work, the ethnomethodological and sociolinguistic investigations of H. Garfinkel, W. Labov, H. Sachs,E. A. Schegloff,and others have describedthe proceduresof everyday interactions relative to structuresof expectation, negotiation, and improvisation proper to ordinary language.r0 Finally, in addition to the semioticsand philosophiesof "convention" (from O. Ducrot to D. Lewis;.'r we must look into the ponderous formal logics and their extension,in the field of analytical philosophy, into the domains of action (G. H. von Wright, A. C. Danto, R. J. B e r n s t e i n ) , r 2i m e ( A . N . P r i o r , N . R e s c h e r a n d J . U r q u h a r t ) , r 3a n d t m o d a l i s a t i o n( G . E . H u g h e sa n d M . J . C r e s s w e l lA . R . W h i t e ; . ' oT h e s e , extensionsyield a weighty apparatusseekingto grasp the delicatelayering and plasticity of ordinary language,with its almost orchestralcom(temporalization, binationsof logical elements modalization,injunctions, p r e d i c a t e s f a c t i o n , e t c . ) w h o s e d o m i n a n t sa r e d e t e r m i n e di n t u r n b y o circumstances and conjunctural demands.An investigationanalogousto Chomsky's study of the oral uses of language must seek to restore to everyday practicestheir logical and cultural legitimacy, at least in the sectors-still very limited-in which we have at our disposalthe instruments necessary account for them.r5This kind of researchis complito cated by the fact that these practicesthemselves alternately exacerbate and disrupt our logics. Its regrets are like those of the poet, and like him, it strugglesagainst oblivion: "And I forgot the element of chance introduced by circumstances, calm or haste,sun or cold, dawn or dusk, the taste of strawberriesor abandonment,the half-understoodmessage, the front page of newspapers,the voice on the telephone, the most anodyne conversation,the most anonymous man or woman, everything that speaks,makes noise, passesby, touches us lightly, meets us head
on. "l6

The marginality of a majority Thesethree determinationsmake possiblean exploration of the cultural problematicsand puncfield, an exploration defined by an investigative tuated by more detailedinquiries located by reference hypotheses to that remain to be verified. Such an exploration will seekto situate the types of operalions characterizing consumption in the framework of an economy, and to discern in these practicesof appropriation indexes of the

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that flourishesat the very point where practiceceases have creativity to its own language. Marginality is today no longer limited to minority groups, but is rathermassive and pervasive;this cultural activity of the non-producers of culture,an activity that is unsigned, unreadable,and unsymbolized, remains only one possiblefor all those who nevertheless and pay the buy for the showy products through which a productivist economy articulatesitself. Marginality is becoming universal. A marginal group has now become silent majority. a That doesnot mean the group is homogeneous. The procedures allowing the re-use of products are linked together in a kind of obligatory language, and their functioning is related to social situationsand power relationships. Confronted by imageson television,the immigrant worker doesnot have the same critical or creative elbow-room as the average citizen. the same terrain, his inferior access information, financial On to means, and compensationsof all kinds elicits an increased deviousness, or fantasy, laughter. Similar strategicdeployments,when acting on difrelationshipsof force, do not produce identical effects.Hence the ferent (in necessity differentiating both the "actions" or "engagements" the of militarysense) that the system of products effectswithin the consumer grid,and the various kinds of room to maneuver left for consumersby thesituations which they exercise in their "art." The relation of procedures the fields of force in which they act must to therefore lead to a polemologlcalanalysisof culture. Like law (one of its models), culture articulates conflictsand alternatelylegitimizes, displaces, or controlsthe superior force. It developsin an atmosphereof tensions, andoften of violence,for which it providessymbolic balances, contracts of compatibilityand compromises,all more or lesstemporary. The tact i c so f c o n s u m p t i o n . h e i n g c n i o u sw a y s i n w h i c h t h e w e a k m a k e u s e o f t thestrong.thus lend a political dimensionto everydaypractices.

2. The tactics o.fpra<'ti<'e In the course of our research,the scheme,rather too neatly dichotomized,of the relations betweenconsumersand the mechanisms proof ductionhas been diversified in relation to three kinds of concerns:the search a problematicsthat could articulatethe material collected;the for description a limited number of practices(reading.talking, walking, of dwelling, cooking, etc.) consideredto be particularly significant;and the extension the analysisof theseeverydayoperationsto scientificfields of

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apparently governedby another kind of logic. Through the presentation of our investigationalong these three lines, the overly schematiccharacter of the generalstatementcan be somewhatnuanced.

Trajectories, tactics,and rhetorics As unrecognizedproducers,poets of their own acts, silent discoverers of j u n g l e o f f u n c t i o n a l i s tr a t i o n a l i t y , c o n s u m e r s their own paths in the p r o d u c et h r o u g h t h e i r s i g n i f y i n gp r a c t i c e s o m e t h i n g h a t m i g h t b e c o n s t sidered similar to the "wandering lines" ("/lgnes d'erre"\ drawn by the a u t i s t i cc h i l d r e ns t u d i e db y F . D e l i g n y( 1 7 ) :" i n d i r e c t " o r " e r r a n t " t r a j e c tories obeying their own logic. ln the technocratically constructed, written, and functionalizedspacein which the consumersmove about, their trajectoriesform unforeseeable partly unreadablepaths sentences, across a space. Although they are composed with the vocabulariesof (those of television,newspapers, established languages supermarkets, or museum sequences) and although they remain subordinatedto the prescribed syntactical forms (temporal modes o[ schedules,paradigmatic orders of spaces,etc.), the trajectories trace out the ruses of other interestsand desiresthat are neither determined nor captured by the s y s t e m sn w h i c h t h e y d e v e l o p . r s i E v e n s t a t i s t i c ailn v e s t i g a t i o ne m a i n sv i r t u a l l y i g n o r a n to f t h e s e r a j e c r t tories, since it is satisfiedwith classifying,calculating,and putting into t a b l e st h e " l e x i c a l " u n i t s w h i c h c o m p o s et h e m b u t t o w h i c h t h e y c a n n o t be reduced,and with doing this in referenceto its own categoriesand taxonomies. Statistical investigationgrasps the material of these pract i c e s ,b u t n o t t h e i r f o r m ; i t d e t e r m i n e s h e e l e m e n t su s e d , b u t n o t t h e t "phrasing" producedby the bricolage(the artisan-likeinventiveness) and the discursiveness that combine theseelements,which are all in general c i r c u l a t i o na n d r a t h e r d r a b . S t a t i s t i c a i n q u i r y , i n b r e a k i n gd o w n t h e s e l "efficaciousmeanderings"into units that it definesitself, in reorganizing the results of its analysesaccording to its own codes, "finds" only the h o m o g e n o u s T h e p o w e r o f i t s c a l c u l a t i o n si e s i n i t s a b i l i t y t o d i v i d e , . l b u t i t i s p r e c i s e l y h r o u g h t h i s a n a - l y t i cf r a g m e n t a t i o n h a t i t l o s e s i g h t t t s of what it claims to seekand to represent.re "Trajectory" suggests movement,but it also involvesa plane projeca t i o n , a f l a t t e n i n go u t . I t i s a t r a n s c r i p t i o n . g r a p h ( w h i c h t h e e y e c a n A master)is substitutedfor an operation;a line which can be reversed (i.e., r e a d i n b o t h d i r e c t i o n s ) o e sd u t v f o r a n i r r e v e r s i b l ee m p o r a l s e r i e s a d t .

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tracingfor acts.To avoid this reduction, I resort to a distinction between tacticsand strategies. I call a "strategy" the calculus of force-relationships which becomes p o s s i b l w h e n a s u b j e c to f w i l l a n d p o w e r ( a p r o p r i e t o r ,a n e n t e r p r i s ea e , city, a scientific institution) can be isolated from an "environment." A strategy assumesa place that can be circumscribedas proper (propre) and thus serve as the basis for generating relations with an exterior distinct frorn it (competitors, adversaries,"clientles," "targets," or "objects"of research).Political, economic,and scientificrationality has been constructed this strategicmodel. on I c a l l a " t a c t i c , "o n t h e o t h e r h a n d . a c a l c u l u s h i c h c a n n o tc o u n t o n w a r s p r o p e r("a s p a t i a lo r i n s t i t u t i o n a l o c a l i z a t i o n )n o r t h u s o n a b o r d e r , l i n e d i s t i n g u i s h i n gh e o t h e r a s a v i s i b l e t o t a l i t y . T h e p l a c e o f a t a c t i c t belongs the other.20A tactic insinuatesitself into the other's place, to fragmentarily, without taking it over in its entirety, without being able to keep it at a distance. It has at its disposal no base where it can c a p i t a l i zo n i t s a d v a n t a g e sp r e p a r ei t s e x p a n s i o n sa n d s e c u r e n d e p e n e . , i d e n c e i t h r e s p e c t o c i r c u m s t a n c e s .h e " p r o p e r " i s a v i c t o r y o f s p a c e w T over time. On the contrary, becauseit does not have a place, a tactic d e p e n do n t i m e - i t i s a l w a y so n t h e w a t c h f o r o p p o r t u n i t i e s h a t m u s t s t " o n t h e w i n g . " W h a t e v e ri t w i n s , i t d o e s n o t k e e p . I t m u s t be seized c o n s t a n t l m a n i p u l a t e v e n t si n o r d e r t o t u r n t h e m i n t o " o p p o r t u n i t i e s . " y e T h e w e a k m u s t c o n t i n u a l l yt u r n t o t h e i r o w n e n d s f o r c e sa l i e n t o t h e m . T h i si s a c h i e v e d n t h e p r o p i t i o u s m o m e n t sw h e n t h e y a r e a b l e t o c o m i bine heterogeneous elements(thus, in the supermarket,the housewife confrontsheterogeneous and mobile data- what she has in the refrigerator,the tastes,appetites,and moods of her guests,the best buys and t h e i rp o s s i b l e o m b i n a t i o n s i t h w h a t s h ea l r e a d yh a s o n h a n d a t h o m e , c w e t c . ) ; h e i n t e l l e c t u a l y n t h e s i s f t h e s eg i v e n e l e m e n t s a k e s t h e f o r m , t s o t however, of a discourse, not but of the decisionitself.the act and manner in which the opportunity is "seized." ( M a n y e v e r y d a yp r a c t i c e s t a l k i n g , r e a d i n g ,m o v i n g a b o u t , s h o p p i n g , etc.) are tactical in character.And so are. more generally.many cooking, " w a y so f o p e r a t i n g " :v i c t o r i e so f t h e " w e a k " o v e r t h e " s t r o n g " ( w h e t h e r the strengthbe that of powerful people or the violenceof things or of an i m p o s e d r d e r ,e t c . ) ,c l e v e rt r i c k s ,k n o w i n g h o w t o g e t a w a y w i t h t h i n g s . o "hunter's cunning," maneuvers, polymorphic simulations, joyful disc o v e r i e sp o e t i c a s w e l l a s w a r l i k e . T h e G r e e k s c a l l e d t h e s e" w a y s o f , o p e r a t i n g " ' m E t i . sB2 tt t h e y g o m u c h f u r t h e r b a c k . t o t h e i m m e m o r i a l .u

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intelligencedisplayed in the tricks and imitations of plants and fishes. From the depths of the ocean to the streetsof modern megalopolises, there is a continuity and permanence thesetactics. in In our societies, local stabilitiesbreak down, it is as if, no longer as fixed by a circumscribedcommunity, tactics wander out of orbit, maki n g c o n s u m e r sn t o i m m i g r a n t si n a s y s t e mt o o v a s t t o b e t h e i r o w n , t o o i tightly woven for them to escapefrom it. But these tactics introduce a Brownian movement into the system. They also show the extent to which intelligenceis inseparablefrom the everyday strugglesand pleasuresthat it articulates.Strategies, contrast,concealbeneathobjective in calculations their connection with the power that sustains them from within the stronghold of its own "proper" place or institution. The discipline of rhetoric offers models for differentiatingamong the types of tactics.This is not surprising,since,on the one hand, it describes the "turns" or tropes of which languagecan be both the site and the object, and, on the other hand, these manipulations are related to the ways of changing (seducing, persuading, making use of) the will of For another (the audience).22 thesetwo reasons,rhetoric, the scienceof the "ways of speaking,"offers an array of figure-typesfor the analysisof everydayways of acting even though such analysisis in theory excluded from scientificdiscourse. Two logics of action (the one tactical,the other strategic)arise from thesetwo facetsof practicing language.In the space of a language(as in that of games),a society makes more explicit the f o r m a l r u l e so f a c t i o na n d t h e o p e r a t i o n s h a t d i f f e r e n t i a t eh e m . t t In the enormous rhetorical corpus devoted to the art of speaking or operating,the Sophistshave a privilegedplace,from the point of view of tactics. Their principle was, according to the Greek rhetorician Corax. to make the weaker position seemthe stronger,and they claimed tcl have the power of turning the tableson the powerful by the way in which they made use of the opportunities offered by the particular situation.:r Moreover, their theoriesinscribetactics in a long tradition of reflection on the relationships between reason and particular actions and situations. Passing by way of The Art o.f War by the Chinese author Sun Tzu2oor the Arabic anthology, The Book o.f Tricks,25 this tradition of a l o g i c a r t i c u l a t e d n s i t u a t i o n s n d t h e w i l l o f o t h e r sc o n t i n u e s n t o c o n o a i t e m p o r a r ys o c i o l i n g u i s t i c s . Reading,talking, dwelling,cooking, etc. To describethese everyday practicesthat produce without capitalizing, that is, without taking control over time, one starting point seemed

GENE RA I. I N TRO D LICTIO N

inevitablebecauseit is the "exorbitant" focus of contemporary culture and its consumption: reading. From TV to newspapers, from advertising to all sorts of mercantile epiphanies,our society is characterized a by c a n q e r o ug r o w t h o l ' v i s i o n . m e a s u r i n g v e r y ' t h i n g y i t s a b i l i t y t o s h o w s e b o r b e s h o w n a n d t r a n s m u t i n gc o m m u n i c a t i o n n t o a v i s u a lj o u r n e y . I t i s i a s o r t o f e p i c o f t h e e y e a n d o f t h e i m p u l s et o r e a d .T h e e c o n o m yi t s e l f , transformedinto a "semeiocracy"(26), encouragesa hypertrophic dev e l o p m e no f r e a d i n g .T h u s , f o r t h e b i n a r y s e t p r o d u c t i o n - c o n s u m p t i o n , t onewould substituteits more generalequivalent:writing-reading.Readi n g ( a n i m a g e o r a t e x t ) , m o r e o v e r ,s e e m st o c o n s t i t u t et h e m a x i m a l d e v e l o p m e n tf t h e p a s s i v i t y s s u m e d o c h a r a c t e r i zte e c o n s u m e rw h o o a t h , i s c o n c e i v e d f a s a v o y e u r ( w h e t h e rt r o g l o d y t i co r i t i n e r a n t )i n a " s h o w o " r7 bizsociety. I n r e a l i t y ,t h e a c t i v i t y o f r e a d i n gh a s o n t h e c o n t r a r y a l l t h e c h a r a c teristicsof a silent production: the drift across the page. the metamorphosis the text effectedby the wandering eyesof the reader,the of improvisationand expectation of meaningsinferred from a few words, l e a p s v e r w r i t t e n s p a c e s n a n e p h e m e r a d a n c e .B u t s i n c eh e i s i n c a p o i l (unlesshe writes or records), of able stockpiling the readercannot protect himself againstthe erosion of time (while reading,he forgetshimself and he forgets what he has read) unless he buys the object (book, image) w h i c hi s n o m o r e t h a n a s u b s t i t u t e( t h e s p o o r o r p r o m i s e )o f m o m e n t s "lost" in reading. He insinuatesinto another person'stext the ruses of p l e a s u r e n d a p p r o p r i a t i o n : h e p o a c h e so n i t . . i s t r a n s p o r t e di n t o i t . a p l u r a l i z eh i m s e l f i n i t l i k e t h e i n t e r n a l r u m b l i n g so f o n e ' s b o d y . R u s e , s m e t a p h o ra r r a n g e m e n t . h i s p r o d u c t i o n i s a l s o a n " i n v e n t i o n " o f t h e . t m e m o r y . o r d s b e c o m et h e o u t l e t o r p r o d u c t o f s i l e n t h i s t o r i e s . h e W T readable transforms itself into the memorable: Barthesreads Proust in Stendhal's text;2i the viewer reads the landscape his childhood in the of evening news.The thin film of writing becomesa movement of strata, a play of spaces.A different world (the reader's)slips into the author's place. T h i s m u t a t i o n m a k e s t h e t e x t h a b i t a b l e ,l i k e a r e n t e d a p a r t m e n t .I t transforms another person'sproperty into a spaceborrowed for a mom e n tb y a t r a n s i e n t .R e n t e r sm a k e c o m p a r a b l e h a n g e sn a n a p a r t m e n t c i theyfurnish with their acts and memories; as do speakers,in the language into which they insert both the messages their native tongue of a n d ,t h r o u g h t h e i r a c c e n t ,t h r o u g h t h e i r o w n " t u r n s o f p h r a s e , "e t c . , their own history; as do pedestrians,in the streetsthey fill with the f o r e s t s f t h e i r d e s i r e sa n d s o a l s . I n t h e s a m e w a v t h e u s e r so f s o c i a l o

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G E N E RA L I NT ROD L.ICTI N O

c o d e st u r n t h e m i n t o m e t a p h o r sa n d e l l i p s e s f t h e i r o w n q u e s t s .T h e o ruling order servesas a support for innumerable productive activities, while at the same time blinding its proprietors to this creativity (like those "bosses"who simply can't seewhat is being created within their own enterprises).2e Carried to its limit, this order would be the equivalent of the rules of meter and rhyme for poets of earlier times: a body of constraintsstimulating new discoveries. set of rules with which improa visation plays. R e a d i n g t h u s i n t r o d u c e sa n " a r t " w h i c h i s a n y t h i n g b u t p a s s i v e .I t resembles rather that art whose theory was developedby medievalpoets and romancers:an innovation infiltrated into the text and even into the terms of a tradition. Imbricatedwithin the strategies modernity (which of personal language, whether identify creation with the invention of a cultural or scientific), the procedures of contemporary consumption appear to constitutea subtle art of "renters" who know how to insinuate their countlessdifferencesinto the dominant text. ln the Middle Ages, the text was framed by the four, or seven,interpretations which it was o[ . h e l d t o b e s u s c e p t i b l eA n d i t w a s a b o o k . T o d a y , t h i s t e x t n o l o n g e r comesfrom a tradition. It is imposed by the generationof a productivist technocracy.It is no longer a referentialbook, but a whole societymade into a book, into the writing of the anonymouslaw of production. It is usefulto compare other arts with this art of readers.For example, the art of conversationalists: rhetoric of ordinary conversationconthe sistsof practices which transform "speechsituations,"verbal productions in which the interlacing of speaking positions weaves an oral fabric without individual owners,creationsof a communicationthat belongsto no one. Conversationis a provisionaland collectiveeffect of competence in the art of manipulating"commonplaces" and the inevitability of events i n s u c ha w a y a s t o m a k e t h e m " h a b i t a b l e . " ' 0 h B u t o u r r e s e a r c h a s c o n c e n t r a t e d b o v ea l l o n t h e u s e so f s p a c e , ' ' o n a the ways of frequentingor dwelling in a place,on the complex processes of the art of cooking, and on the many ways of establishinga kind of reliability within the situations imposed on an individual, that is, of making it possibleto live in them by reintroducing into them the plural mobility of goals and desires-an art of manipulatingand enjoying.r2

E x t e n s i o n sp r o s p e c t s n d p o l i t i c s : a The analysis of these tactics was extended to two areas marked out for study, although our approach to them changed as the research

GENERAI.INTRODUCTION

xxllt

proceeded: first concernsprospects,or futurology, and the second, the theindividualsubjectin political life. The "scientific"characterof futurology posesa problem from the very start. If the objective of such research is ultimately to establish the intelligibility presentreality, and its rules as they reflect a concernfor of coherence, must recognize, the one hand, the nonfunctionalstatus we on of an increasingnumber of concepts,and on the other. the inadequacy of procedures thinking about, in our case,space.Chosen here as an for objectof study, spaceis not really accessible through the usual political andeconomicdeterminations;besides, futurology providesno theory of space."The metaphorizationof the conceptsemployed,the gap between theatomizationcharacteristic research of and the generalization required in reportingit, etc.. suggestthat we take as a definition of futurological discourse "simulation" that characterizes method. the its T h u s i n f u t u r o l o g y w e m u s t c o n s i d e r :( l ) t h e r e l a t i o n s b e t w e e na certain kind of rationqlity and an imagination (which is in discoursethe mark of the locus of its production); (2) the differencebetween,on the one hand, the tentative moves, pragmatic ruses,and successive tactic's that mark the stagesof practical investigationand, on the other hand, thestrategic representations offered to the public as the product of these operations.3a I n c u r r e n td i s c u s s i o n so n e c a n d i s c e r nt h e s u r r e p t i t i o u s e t u r n o f a , r rhetoric that metaphorizes fields "proper" to scientificanalysis, the while, in research laboratories,one finds an increasing distancebetweenactual everyday practices(practicesof the same order as the art of cooking) and the "scenarios" that punctuate with utopian images the hum of operations every laboratory: on the one hand, mixtures of science in and fiction;on the other, a disparity betweenthe spectacle overall strateof giesand the opaque reality of local tactics. We are thus led to inquire into the "underside"of scientificactivity and to ask whether it does not functionas a collage-juxtaposing, but linking lessand lesseffectively, thetheoretical ambitions of the discoursewith the stubborn persistence of ancienttricks in the everyday work of agencies and laboratories.In any event,this split structure, observablein so many administrations and companies, requires us to rethink all the tactics which have so far been neglected the epistemology science. by of T h e q u e s t i o nb e a r so n m o r e t h a n t h e p r o c e d u r e s f p r o d u c t i o n :i n a o different form, it concerns as well the status oI the individual in t e c h n i c as y s t e m s s i n c e t h e i n v o l v e m e n to f t h e s u b j e c t d i m i n i s h e si n l , p r o p o r t i o no t h e t e c h n o c r a t i c x p a n s i o no f t h e s es y s t e m sI.n c r e a s i n g l y t e

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constrained,yet lessand lessconcernedwith thesevast frameworks, the i n d i v i d u a l d e t a c h e sh i m s e l f f r o m t h e m w i t h o u t b e i n g a b l e t o e s c a p e them and can henceforth nly try to outwit them,to pull tricks on them, o , t o r e d i s c o v e r w i t h i n a n e l e c t r o n i c i z e d n d c o m p u t e r i z e dm e g a l o p o l i s , a the "art" of the huntersand rural folk of earlier days. The fragmentation of the social fabric today lends a political dimension to the problem of the subject.In support of this claim can be adducedthe symptoms r e p r e s e n t e d y i n d i v i d u a l c o n f l i c t s a n d l o c a l o p e r a t i o n s ,a n d e v e n b y b e c o l o g i c a lo r g a n i z a t i o n s t h o u g h t h e s ea r e p r e o c c u p i e d r i m a r i l y w i t h , p t h e e f f o r t t o c o n t r o l r e l a t i o n sw i t h t h e e n v i r o n m e n tc o l l e c t i v e l y T h e s e . ways of reappropriatingthe product-system, ways createdby consumers, have as their goal a therapeutit's.[ordeteriorating sot'ial relations and m a k e u s e o f t e c h n i q u e s f r e - e m p l o y m e nitn w h i c h w e c a n r e c o g n i z eh e o t procedures of everyday practices.A politics of such ploys should be developed.In the perspective opened up by Freud's Civilization and Its D i s c o n t e n t ss u c h a p o l i t i c ss h o u l d a l s o i n q u i r e i n t o t h e p u b l i c ( " d e m o , c r a t i c " ) i m a g eo f t h e m i c r o s c o p i cm u l t i f o r m , a n d i n n u m e r a b l e o n n e c , c tions between manipulating and enio.ving, the fleeting and massive reality of a social activity at play with the order that containsit. W i t o l d G o m b r o w i c z .a n a c u t e v i s i o n a r y .g a v e t h i s p o l i t i c s i t s h e r o the anti-herowho haunts our research-when he gave a voice to the small-time ofticial (Musil's "man without qualities"or that ordinary man to whom Freud dedicated Civilization and lts Dist'ontenls)whose refrain is "When one does not have what one wants, one must want what one has": "l have had, you see,to resort more and more to very s m a l l , a l m o s t i n v i s i b l ep l e a s u r e sl,i t t l e e x t r a s .. . . Y o u ' v e n o i d e a h o w great one becomes with these little detatls, it's incredible how one g r o w s" " .