The 'Art' of Creative Resistance in 'Everyday Life' ❤️

‘Place’ vs ‘Space’ | The Act and Art of Creative Resistance

Certeau & the ‘Everyday Life’

#reflections #musings

Just around three days ago, on 15th September 2023, I chanced upon an insightful article in the Editorial page of Thamizh Thisai, [the Tamil Edition of The Hindu.]

The article was written by Prof. Rajan Kurai Krishnan.

[On an aside, Prof. Rajan Kurai Krishnan was awarded his PhD in Anthropology by Columbia University, New York in 2009 for his thesis on Tamil Cinema titled “Cultures of Indices: Anthropology of Tamil and Other Cinemas”].

Says Rajan –

Do you think a theoretical book, or a book of insightful contemplations can be written in a poetic style?

Then, you should read for yourself Michel de Certeau’s 1984 book titled, Practice of Everyday Life.

Prof. Rajan then compares Certeau’s writing style to Walter Benjamin’s!

And although Certeau is renowned for his scholarship in Psychology, Philosophy and History across various Universities in America and in Paris, his fame rests predominantly on this book titled, Practice of Everyday Life and his profound thoughts on the ‘everyday’, says Rajan.

Indeed, Certeau is much popular amongst students of literature, especially those of us who specialize in Cultural Studies.

His profound and engaging takes on the ‘Poaching Reader’ or the ‘Reader as Poacher’ is quite popular amongst ‘Reader Response’ devotees as well.

You may want to read more on Certeau’s take on the ‘Reader as Poacher’ on our past post HERE.

Coming back, Certeau in this book, does a profound study on the routine practices or the ‘arts of doing’, such as Reading, Talking, Dwelling, Cooking, etc..

To Certeau, then, as with Cultural Studies, human beings and their ‘cultural practices’ become a profound subject of study.

Grounding his concepts on Foucault, and at the same time, moving away from the Foucauldian, Certeau observes that, in the dichotomy between producers and consumers, (a very common dichotomy in Cultural Studies), the producers (the powerful) are the ones who ‘produce’ the infrastructure of culture – by being the ‘authors’ of literature, science, law, cityscapes, etc), and the users (he prefers the word ‘user’ to ‘consumer’) creatively manipulate, alter, poach, and transform those infrastructures by appropriating them and internalising them.

The process of ‘Consumption’ hence becomes a creative process, a ‘silent production’, which is again a form of resistance, or in Certeau’s words, ‘Creative Resistance’.

If then, for example, Power has the potential to ‘create’ a place (infrastructure), the creative artist – or say, the story teller creates a beautifully crafted ‘space’ within the bounds of ‘place’ which itself strategically acts as means of creative resistance to the power centres.

Says Certeau –

“Renters make comparable changes in an apartment they furnish with their acts and memories; as do speakers, in the language into which they insert both the messages of their native tongue and, through their accent, through their own “turns of phrase,” etc., their own history; as do pedestrians, in the streets they fill with the forests of their desires and goals.”

Interestingly, he calls it the ‘Space of Enunciation!’ as well!

Rings a bell, ain’t it? 😊 

PS: You may want to read our past post on Certeau’s conceptualisation of the ‘Reader as Poacher’ HERE!