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Everyday Life and the Challenge to History in Postwar France: Braudel, Lefebvre, CerteauAuthor(s): Derek SchillingSource: Diacritics, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Spring, 2003), pp. 23-40Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3805822
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EVERYDAY LIFE
AND
THE
CHALLENGE TO HISTORY IN
POSTWAR
FRANCE
BRAUDEL,
LEFEBVRE,
CERTEAU
DEREK
SCHILLING
The
everyday:
What is
most
difficult to discover. Far from a mere rhetorical
captatio,
these
words
of
caution with
which
Maurice
Blanchot
opens
his
1962
review
essay
on
the
work
of
Marxist
sociologist
Henri
Lefebvre
[ Everyday
Speech
12]
define a
con?
cept
whose
corrosive
power
erodes all schemes
of
thought.
Neither
subject
nor
object,
situated
in
a
prelogical
realm
on the other
side of
authenticity
and
inauthenticity,
the
everyday
points
for
Blanchot
less to the
real-world content
of
a
perceiving
conscious-
ness
than
to the
conditions
of
possibility
of
thought
itself.
If
the
everyday,
much like the
Heideggerian
One
(das Man)
with
which
it shares
an
ontic
priority,
strikes the
philoso-
pher
as a
concept
eminently
difficult to
discover,
it
is
precisely
because
at
each mo?
ment
of its
becoming
it
escapes
our
attempts
to
comprehend
it
[14].
Until
recently,
the
everyday
had
escaped
our
grasp
in a sense
quite
distinct from the
epistemological
one
Blanchot
had in
mind,
namely
as
an
object
of modern intellectual
history.
Surely,
in
France,
the
decades
following
the
Liberation
suffered no dearth of
writings
on
the
conjoined
themes
of
everydayness
and
everyday
life.
Lefebvre's
three-
volume
Critique
de la
vie
quotidienne (1947-81),
well known
in
communist
and leftist
circles,
took
root in
Marx's
category
of
alienation
and advocated
an increased knowl?
edge
of
present
living
conditions under
modernization;
from 1950
onward,
advocating
a
history
of
the
long
term
(longue
duree),
Fernand Braudel
investigated
the
rhythms
and
incipient
structures
of
everyday
life
characteristic of
the
preindustrial
world;
mili-
tants
of
the
Situationist
International
(1957-72)
called for
a streetwise revolution
in
everyday
life
to
disrupt
the
smooth
functioning
of
productivist society through
ludic
intervention and
the
unearthing
of
hidden
desire;
finally,
in
the wake of the failed revolt
of
May
1968,
anthropologists
of
culture such as Michel Maffesoli
(1979)
and
Michel
de
Certeau
(1980)
placed
their
research in
direct relation
to
the
quotidian,
the
first
empha-
sizing
the
ambiguity
of social
rites
against
the
rational
programming
of
daily
existence,
the
second
drawing
attention
to
the
inherent inventiveness of
the
everyday
in
order to
redress the
top-down
bias
of
Foucault's
critique
of
the
microtechnologies
of
power.
The
influence of
these
thinkers
aside,
intellectual
histories
covering
the
years
1945-81
in
France
paidscant
attention to the
everyday
as
a
category, privileging
instead
the
legacy
of
existential
phenomenology
on the one
hand and structuralism and
Lacanian
psycho-
analysis
on the
other.1
What
Francois
Dosse
coyly
referred to
as the chant du
signe
had
/
wish
to
thank the
participants
of
the
Stanford
University
French
Culture
Workshop for
their
comments on
a
draft
ofthis
paper
as well as
Michele H.
Richmanfor
her
guidance
and
insight.
1.
See,for
example,
Descombes,
Pavel,
and
Dosse,
History
of Structuralism.
Among
the
first
works
to
examine
the
confluence
of Lefebvre's
dialectical
critique of
everyday
life
and
the
late
Sartre was
Poster's
Existential
Marxism
[238-57].
diacritics /
spring
2003
diacritics
33.1:2340
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enough
seductive
power
to
lure critics into
examining
the
discrete
components
of
signi-
fying
systems
while
neglecting
the contexts
within which
these
systems
evolved.2
It is a
commonplace
that
each
period
rewrites
intellectual
history
by projecting
its
own
preoccupations
onto
periods
past,
and the
present
cultural
turn
is no
exception
in
its
promotion
of the
everyday
as a
working
category.
Over
the
past
decade
and a
half,
in
an
effort
to
make
amends for
the abstractions of
French
theory, notably
for Baudrillard's
postmodernism of simulacra and simulation, British and North American scholars trained
in
sociology,
political
theory,
and
literature have made
significant
inroads toward con-
stituting
what
Michael Gardiner
has
called a clandestine
history
ofthe
everyday
[2].
Reasons
for
the
current
appeal
of
this
category
within critical
thought
are
many.
First
among
them is the
perception
ofthe
limits
of
language-based
paradigms?everyday
life
would seem
reassuringly
to
stand
on
the side
of
reality
and
praxis?and
the
concomitant
refusal
to
reduce
experience
to mediate
representations?everyday
life
would resist
trans-
lation
into
verbal
and visual
media,
so
many
techniques
that
come to
abolish,
as Blanchot
notes,
the
'nothing
happens'
ofthe
everyday
[18].
By
virtue of its
emphasis
on
ano-
nymity,
the
everyday
seems, second,
to allow
for a rehabilitation
of
ordinary
practices
while
precluding
the
wholesale reinstatement
of
anthropocentrism. Third,
one could
adduce
the
frustrations
generated
by
class-based
ideology
critique
and
by
macrostruc-
tural
explanations
of culture
that dismiss as iriessential
the
phenomenological
realm of
the
lived.
Thanks,
in
no
small
part,
to its semantic
breadth,
the
everyday
has
emerged
as
a
potential
substitute
for,
if
not an
improvement
on,
such
key
words as
culture,
prac?
tice,
experience,
totality,
and
modernity.
Questions
of
national
language
and intellectual
tradition
seem
paramount
in
ascer-
taining
how distinct
theories
of
everydayness
and
everyday
life took
shape
over
the
course
ofthe
twentieth
century. Early
work
by
Kaplan
and
Ross
(1987)
and
by Rigby
on
popular
culture
(1991)
[19-21,
33-37]
concentrated
on
specifically
French
investiga-
tions of
le
quotidien;
Ross's
understanding
of a
French
quotidian
(1997)
in
particular
springs
from
the
avant-garde
injunction
to
change
life
adapted by
the
Surrealists from
Rimbaud
and
Marx,
and
runs
through
Lefebvre's
left
politics
down
to
Certeau's
celebratory description
of
popular
tactics of resistance.
In their attention
to the liberat-
ing potential
of
daily
life,
French
theories would
remain distinct from
earlier,
German-
language
meditations on
Alltaglichkeit,
such as
Lukacs's
Metaphysics
ofTragedy
(1911)
and
Heidegger's Being
and
Time
(1926),
which
cast the
everyday
as
the
domain
of
inauthenticity,
triviality,
and
error. More
recently,
however,
challenging
these national
genealogies,
critics
like
Harry
Harootunian
have
traced
both
the
migration
of
concepts
of
everydayness
across
European
intellectual formations
(e.g.,
Lefebvre's
debt to
Heidegger
[109])
and their
genesis
under
modernity
outside
Europe,
as
in
the
Japan
of
the
1920s. Two further
studies,
by
Gardiner
(2000)
and
Highmore
(2002),
propose
broad
transnational
surveys
of theories
of
everyday
life,3
underscoring
the
extent
to
which
these
last
might
serve as a
rallying
point
for cultural
studies,
in
lieu of
standard socio-
logical
categories
but also of
nonstandard ones
put
into
use
by
critics from Adorno
to
Raymond
Williams.
2.
A
case
in
point
is Barthes
's
profession
in 1967's
The Fashion
System
ofhis
lack
ofinterest
in the
workings
of
the
fashion
industry infavor ofthe
semiological
system undergirding
the
writ-
ten
item
ofclothing.
One could
also mention A.-J.
Greimas,
who
brought
the same
analytic rigor
to the
semiotics
ofmunicipal
water
delivery
as to the
literary
text.
3.
Gardiner
examines,
in
succession,
the work
ofSimmel,
the
Surrealists,
Lefebvre,
Debord
and the
Situationists,
Certeau,
and
feminist
philosopher
Dorothy
Smith,
while
Highmore,
with
greater
attention
to
narrative
continuity,
treats
SimmeVs
impressionist
social
microscopy,
Surrealism's
questfor
the
marvelous,
Benjamin's
montages of
cultural
debris,
and the
British
Mass
Observation
movement,
before turning
in
hisflnal
chapters
to
Lefebvre
and
Certeau.
24
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Highmore's
recent
plea
for a
cross-cultural
figuring
of
everyday
life
[175],
that
is,
for a
comprehensive
understanding
of the
differing
coordinates
of social
existence
under
modernity
in
a
global
frame
[175],
is no doubt a
welcome one.
Yet from the
standpoint
of
the
history
of
ideas,
a
transnational
approach
that
corrals
together
thinkers
with
highly
varied
agendas
and
research
methods,
not
to mention
vastly
disparate
local
geographies,
cannot
but
prompt
the
question
of the
conceptual
identity
of
the
everyday:
when is
a
theory properly
a
theory
of
everyday
life? It is
one
thing
to
extrapolate,
with
hindsight,
a
theory
of the
everyday
from works
that make
passing
reference
to themes
of
everydayness
(take
Highmore's generous reading
of Walter
Benjamin
[60-74]),
and
quite
another
to consider the
explicit
epistemological
articulation
given
to
the
everyday
as
a
strong
discursive
marker
by
figures
like Lefebvre or
Certeau,
who
do
not subsume
that
category
to
any
other.4
This
operative
difference
between the
passive
and
active,
between
the
implicit
and
explicit,
is
not
always sufficiently
underscored
by
commenta-
tors.
To the extent that
the
conceptual
identity
of the
everyday,
like
that
of
the
subject,
discourse,
or
ideology, might
interest
intellectual
historians,
it thus
seems reason?
able
to ask
what
precise
value
accrues,
in
a
given
writer's
oeuvre,
to the terms
everyday
life,
the
everyday,
or
everydayness
as
expressed
in the relevant national
language.
The
emergence
of the
everyday
as
a
specific
and
unsurpassable
horizon
for
thought,
as
Blanchot remarked in
his review
of Lefebvre
[13]
is itself
an event
to which one
might
wish
to
assign
inner
and
outer
limits,
without
neglecting
the
structuring
role of
national and
institutional
context.
In
what
follows
I
want
to focus on
the
ways
in which three
prominent
French
intel-
lectuals
writing
after
1945 chose to
describe
the limits of the
possible
under
the
aegis
of
everyday
life.
The
first,
Annales historian Fernand
Braudel,
has
been
cast
as
margin-
ally
relevant
to
this
nascent
intellectual
tradition
[Kaplan
and Ross
3],
rooted
for
many
in
themes
of
contestation and
revolt;
the
second
two,
Lefebvre
and
Certeau,
are
by
all
accounts central to it.51
would
like
to
contest the
assumption,
made
by
Ross
among
others,
that
the
everyday
is in
some
inherent
way
Surrealist,
rather than
social-scien-
tific,
in
its
derivation. It is
to
my
mind the
wide-reaching
institutional
realization
of
the
potential
of
interdisciplinarity
for the
human
sciences
(sciences
de
Vhomme),
coupled
with
the
rapid pace
of
modernization
in
the late 1950s
and 1960s
(including
the mod-
ernization
of the
social sciences
themselves),
that will
push
the
concept
of
the
everyday
from the
periphery
toward
the center of
intellectual
debate.
My
intent
here,
in
historicizing
the
concept
with a
French
context,
is
to
respond
to a malaise
created
by
the somewhat
forcible unification of
distinct
idioms under
the common
banner of
everyday
life
stud?
ies.
Not that
I wish
to
claim
that
everyday
life is a
particularly
French
affair,
any
more
so
than it
is German
or
Japanese.
Rather,
it strikes
me that the evolution
of
distinct
approaches
within a
given
national idiom can best
be understood
through
the
produc-
tive
tensions and
echoes that
these
approaches present
amongst
themselves
and in rela-
tion to
local histories. In
postwar
France,
concepts
of
everyday
life are
polemologically
constituted
and,
as
contingent
categories,
entertain
a dialectical relation
to
the
evolving
conditions
of
their
intellectual
production.
It
is
perhaps
no
accident that
both Braudel
(1902-85)
and
Lefebvre
(1901-91)
di-
rected
their attention
to the
everyday following
the
Liberation,
a
period
during
which
the
return
to
a
demilitarized
French
state,
to
adequate
foodstuffs
and
supplies?to
ev-
4. It is
revealing
that
Highmore,
in his
presentation
of
a
study
that
might
well have been
called
The
Everyday:
The
Adventures of a
Concept
from Simmel to Certeau
[18],
admits that not
until
his two
final
chapters
on
Lefebvre
and
Certeau
does
something
like 'the
everyday'
as a
specific
problematic
emerge
[32].
5.
For
two
comprehensive
commentaries,
see
Shields
and Buchanan.
diacritics /
spring
2003
25
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5/19
erydayness,
in
a
word?was on
everyone's
mind.6 For
Certeau
(1925-86),
writing
a
generation
later,
it
was
in
part
the
failures
of
May
'68
that
brought
him
to conceive
the
everyday
as
the
locus of a voluntaristic neohumanism.
The
growing
conviction
that
systems
of
thought
can
only produce
orthodoxy
and
that
the
forces
of
recuperation
would
always
win out
against
those of
revolt,
pointed
to
the
importance
of
restoring
faith
in
the
ability
of
common men
and women
to resist.
With these contexts
in
mind,
I
would
like to address those discipline-specific questions that prompted
a turn
to
the
everyday
as a
category
and field of
inquiry, opening
up
onto
an
often
radical
style
of
interdisciplinarity
whose
repercussions
are
fully
in
force
today.
Material
Life
and the
Structures
ofthe Everyday:
Fernand
Braudel
French
historiography
ofthe
postwar
was marked
by
the
rich
inheritance
of Marc Bloch
and
Lucien
Febvre,
who
by
founding
the
journal
Annales
d'histoire
economique
etsociale
in
1929
had made a
decisive break
with the
nineteenth-century
philosophy
of
history
and
its
cumbersome
narrative
teleology. Spurred
on
by
Simiand's
devastating
1903
cri-
tique
of
historical
philology
and
his
call for
a unified
scientific
method based
on
recur-
rent
social
facts,
Bloch and
Febvre
had
questioned
the
centrality
of
the
political
by
diminishing
the
explanatory weight
lent
to actors
and events
within
traditional
narrative
accounts.7 No
longer
confined to the
disruptive,
crisis-ridden
time of
decision,
the
historian's
object
now
extended to
deep
transformations
affecting
social
structure,
mar-
ket
relations,
and
human
geography. Clearly
at
odds
with the
often
impressionistic
works
in the
Parisian
publishing
house
Hachette's
series La vie
quotidienne,
this innovative
work
in
socioeconomic
history
and
mentalites
prepared
the terrain for
the
anthropologi-
cally
aware,
and
statistically
grounded, analysis
of
daily
life
that
Fernand
Braudel
would
undertake at the turn
ofthe 1950s.
Appointed
head
ofthe
newly
formed Sixth Section
ofthe
Ecole
Pratique
des Hautes
Etudes in
1947,
Braudel succeeded Febvre both at
the
College
de
France and
in the
editorship
ofAnnales.
Under his
sway,
historiography
entered
its
storied
quantitative
mode,
favoring
the
accumulation and
statistical treatment
of data
covering imposingly
large
swaths of
time. Causal
explanations
and intellectual
history
fell into
disfavor,
while
cherished
periods
of the national
past
were abandoned
to
more
ideologically
in-
clined
practitioners
ofthe
discipline.
The rift between
narrative
historiography
and
sci?
entific
history
would
only deepen
with the
Annales' renewed
commitment
to collabora-
tive
research that took
cues from
geography,
demography,
and structural
anthropology.
In his
1950
inaugural
lecture at the
College
de
France,
Braudel
called for
a
reinvention
of the
historian's craft: the
fragile
art of
writing history
must measure
up
to the frac-
tured
state
ofthe realities it
treats,
he
argued
[On
History
6].
Freed from
the
idolatry
of
actors
and the
primacy
of
events
(and
reluctant,
no
doubt,
to
address
contemporary
ones),
the historian
takes as his
object
intermeshed
social
realities
m and
for
them-
selves,
beginning
with all the
major
forms
of collective
life
[11].
Between the
immu-
table
confines
of
geography
on the
one
hand and the
ephemeral
event on
the
other,
he
aims
to
rediscover,
beyond
all the
details,
life itself
[16].
As
Braudel
explained
in the
6.
Braudel
had
been
heldprisoner
ofwarfrom
1940 until
the end
ofhostilities,
while
Lefebvre,
removed
from
his
teaching
post
in
Toulouse
by
Occupation officials,
endured
financial
hardship
during
wartime,
although
he
managed
to
serve
as
a
Resistance
organizer
in
the
Forces
francaises
de Vinterieur
[Shields
26-27].
7.
On
the
epistemological
revolution
ofthe
Annales,
see
Dosse,
New
History,
andBourde
and Martin
[171-99].
ReveTs overview
of
postwar
French
historiography
is
particularly
lucid
[Revel
and Hunt
1-63].
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landmark
1958
paper,
History
and the Social
Sciences,
these
facts were not
to be
confused with the
short time
span
(le
temps
couri),
a
time
linked to
individuals,
to
daily
life,
to our
illusions,
to our
hasty
awareness
[prises
de
conscience]?abovQ
all the
time
of the
chronicler
and the
journalist
[28].
Less uncertain
and
more
revealing
by
far
was
the
long
term
(longue
duree),
those
biological, geographical,
economic,
and mental
continuities that
formed an
historical infrastructure
[33]
constraining
what
it was
pos-
sible
to do or to
think.
Everyday
life
for Braudel
would
point
not
then to
inessential,
fleeting
realities,
but
to the
conditions
of the
possible
conceived
in a
global
frame.
In
Civilisation
materielle,
economie et
capitalisme,
the
three-volume work
that
Febvre
commissioned
him to write
in
1952,
he
couples
the
notions
of
the
everyday
and
historical
structure
(les
structures
du
quotidien).
Braudel's
argument
turns
on a
well-known
dilemma of the economic
historian,
for whom
there exist
not
one,
but
several
economies,
each
possessed
of
distinct
laws:
The one
most
frequently
written about is the so-called
market
economy,
in
other
words the
mechanisms
of production
and
exchange
linked to
rural ac-
tivities,
to
small
shops
and
workshops,
to
banks,
exchange s,fairs
and
(ofcourse)
markets.
It
was
on these
transparent
visible
realities,
and on the
easily
ob-
served
processes
that
took
place
within them that the
language
of
economic
science
was
originally founded.
And as a result
it
was
from
the start
confined
within
thisprivileged
arena
/spectacle privilegie/,
to
the
exclusion
ofany
oth-
ers.
[Structures
23]
Braudel takes
issue here
with
the
economic
history
of the
interwar
period,
focused on
those
visible
institutions that had left
a written
record behind
them. But
price
curves
and
wage
cycles
do
not tell
the
whole
story. Turning away
from
the
privileged
arena
of
production
and
exchange,
Braudel
enjoins
his
apprentices
to
explore
those
regions
about
which
the archive
is
silent:
But
there is
another,
shadowy
zone,
often
hard to
see
for
lack
of adequate
historical
documents,
lying
underneath the market
economy:
this is that el-
ementary
basic
activity
which went
on
everywhere
and
the volume
of
which
is
truly
fantastic.
This rich
zone,
like
a
layer
covering
the
earth,
I
have called
it
for
want
of
a
better
expression
material
life
or material
civilization.
[23]
Material
life,
synonymous
in
Braudel's
usage
with
everyday
life,
thus
forms a
pri-
mary,
infra-economic
level
of historical
inquiry.
Yet,
if
one
accepts
that
everyday
life
is
everywhere
run
according
to routine
[28],
how
is
one
to
determine
its
composition?
Demography,
responds
Braudel,
is
paramount,
for
only
in
light
of vast
movements such
as
epidemics,
migrations,
and
conquests
can the historian
properly
evaluate
the limits
of the
possible.
Historical
analysis
of the
everyday
must
then coordinate
the
durability
of the
long
term with the
minute
ffuctuations of low-level
occurrences:
Everyday
life
consists
of the little
things
one
hardly
notices
in time and
space.
The
more we reduce
the
focus
of
vision,
the
more
likely
we
are
to
find
ourselves
in the environment
of material
life
[29].
This
change
in
scale
gives
life
to
objects
not
previously
admitted into the
historian's
workshop,
such
as
foodstuffs,
drink, manners,
lodging,
and
clothing.
But
Braudel's
study
also will showcase
objects
outside of the domestic and
private
spheres,
from
energy
sources and
currency systems
to
modes
of
transport.
It is
worth
underscoring
the insistence
with
which the
author
of The
Structures
of
Everyday
Life
opposes
actor-centered
conceptions
of
history
in his
exploration
of
mate-
diacritics
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The
Cleansing
She
seeks the
Way
down
many
paths.
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rial life.
While it
may
be of interest to know
that Maxmilian
of
Austria sullied
his
fin-
gers
at
table,
whereas
Louis XIV
required
the
use
ofthe
fork,
historians
would do
them-
selves a
gross
disservice were
they
to make of
everyday
life a cult
of
singularity.
In and
of
itself,
literary
anecdote
is
void of
meaning,
for the
key
to
unlocking
the secrets
of
material
life is not the
singularity
of
practices,
but
their
longevity:
This is the dust of history, micro-history in the same sense that Georges Gurvitch
talks
about
micro-sociology:
little
facts
which
do,
it
is
true,
by
indefinite rep-
etition,
add
up
toform
linked chains. Each
ofthem
represents
the thousands
of
others that have
crossed the silent
depths
oftime
and
endured.
[560]
The
historian's
objective
is then to collect and
classify
data,
to
relate
these
data series
one to
another,
and
to
replace
them
within a broad
historical
framework.
Fragmentary
realities link
up
so
as to form
relatively
immutable structures
which
may encompass
several
centuries
[see
the case
of
daily
bread
104-82].
In
denouncing
the
myopia
of
event-based
history,
Braudel
points
to a second
rhythm
by
which the
stuff of
history
unfolds
in
slow
motion,
at
times even
at
the
limit
of
movement
[54].
Human
interven-
tion and
historical consciousness lose
in
importance
while
geographic
and
climatologi-
cal constraints
affecting
human
survival come
to the fore.
No
less
central
than statistics to
his
enterprise
in
Civilisation
materielle
is Braudel's
descriptive
anthropology. Only
against images
of
ordinary
life that allow
us to
perceive
class,
age,
and
regional
differences do data series?however
patiently
constructed?
become readable as
such.
Through
little
details,
travelers'
notes,
a
society
stands
re-
vealed. The
ways
people
eat,
dress,
or
lodge,
at the different
levels
of that
society,
are
never a
matter of indifference. These
snapshots
taken
by
the
historian
from
literary,
artistic,
and
other sources
point
up among
societies
contrasts
and
disparities
[.
.
.]
which are
not
all
superficial [29].
Refuting
both the actor-centered narrative of event-based
history
and
the
synthetic,
class-based
approach
taken
by
Marxist
historians,
the
research
on
the
infra-economy
espoused by
Braudel
brings
with it not
only
an
important
shift in
perspective
from event
to
structure;
it
would in his
estimation
bring everyday
life
no
more no
less,
into
the
domain of
history
[29].
This
move
away
from the
market entails
a return
to the rural.
Indeed,
everyday
life
in
Braudel's
sense
will
designate
above all
a
set
of
socioeconomic
practices
which,
deeply
entrenched
in
the
countryside,
have survived
the
upheavals
of
religious
wars,
monarchic
centralization,
and revolutions
both
political
and industrial.
That the
everyday,
the
routine,
the
unconscious
daily
round
[562]
is
by
Braudel's
definition
a
relatively unchanging object
linked
to
the
long
term
explains
to a
great
extent his
own reluctance to delve into the archives
of
industrial
and
postindustrial
Europe.
For it is not
simply
the
allure of
the unknown
which
attracts
him
to
the
preindustrial
era's
rural
base;
more
importantly,
that
period
presents
a felicitous
test
case
for
modeling
the
long
term itself. The
perceived
immobility
of the
everyday
thus
derives from the
viewpoint
the historian has
chosen
as his own.
It
seems
unlikely?
Braudel's claims
that
reality
is
one and
the same to
the
contrary?that
Civilisation
materielle
could serve as a
model for
knowledge
of
the
everyday
in
its
postwar
guise.
Described
as a
layer
of
stagnant history
[28]
ensconced
in the
rhythms
of centuries
past,
the
everyday points
not
only
to the
particulars
of
material
life that
limit
the
spread
of
civilization,
but to
representations
of lived
experience
that enable
the
analyst
to
cap-
ture
something
of the
past's
anthropological
depth.
However
innovative
this brand
of
new
history appeared
at its
inception,
its
emphasis
on
the
immobility
of the rural
stood
curiously
out
of
phase
with
the
rapid
modernization
of
France
during
what Jean
Fourastie
called the
trente
glorieuses
(1945-75).
Indeed,
the discontinuities
introduced
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in
those
years
affecting
communications,
transport,
and the division
between work and
leisure seem
strangely foreign
to
the
congealed
realities
of which
Braudel
spoke.
His
history
of
everyday
life was
perhaps
also
the
archeology
of an
everyday
lost.
Modernization
and
Mystification:
Henri
Lefebvre's Critique
of
Everyday
Life
Contrary
to
popular
anecdote,
the
concept
of the
everyday
that
was to
undergird
Lefebvre's
Critique of
Everyday
Life
(1947-81)
did
not
simply
jump
from a box of
detergent
into the
philosopher's
lap.
If this
gross
domestic
revelation
recounted
in Le
temps
des
meprises
[34]
speaks
to
the
relationship
between
the lived
and the conceived
in
Lefebvre's
daily
practice
of
philosophy,
it
says
little of the
rigorous
dialectical method
which
the
Marxist
thinker
brought
to bear on the
concept throughout
his
long,
and unde-
niably productive,
career.8 The
roots
of
the
critique
of
everyday
life
can
be
traced
to
the
1930s,
when
Lefebvre
and
Norbert Guterman
translated
for
the French
public
selec-
tions from
Hegel,
Lenin,
and the
young
Marx.9
Extrapolating
from this
material
in
their
1936
book,
La
conscience
mystifiee, they explored
how the
failure of consciousness
to
synthesize
the
contents
of
material
reality
leads to a
state of
alienation,
exemplified
by
the
turn towards
religion,
mysticism,
and
ideology.
Thought
could
supersede
its failures
to
comprehend
experience
only
on
the condition
that it
posit
the fundamental
unity
of
reality
and
consciousness,
the individual and the social.
Lefebvre's
program
of
Hegelian
Marxism thus
set as its
primitive
goal
the disalienated
individual
or total
man,
an idea
sketched
out
in
Marx's
1844
Economic
and
Philosophical
Manuscripts.
What charac-
terizes
Lefebvre's
approach
to the
quotidian
is
an
unwavering
commitment
to dialectics
and
the
need to think the
totality,
and because
the
everyday
is
a dialectical
concept,
it
requires
the
perpetual realignment
of
thought
in relation to sociohistorical
reality.
Whence
the
complicated
publication
history
of
Critique
de la vie
quotidienne,
a book Lefebvre
considered
without
beginning
or end
[Blanchot,
L'homme
1070].10
What accounts
for the
critical
potential
that Lefebvre
perceives
in
everyday
life?
Pace the
historians,
the
everyday
cannot
be
equated
with
a sum of
measurable,
empiri?
cal
realities,
however wide in
scope;
nor
can it be conceived
as
an invariant
concept
or
apriori.
In the
expression critique
de la
vie
quotidienne,
the
genitive
allows
for not
one,
but two
critiques,
each
distinct in its
derivation
and effects.
The
first,
indirect
critique
originates
in the
early
moments
of Occidental
philosophy
in
fifth-century
BCE Athens.
Human
activities deemed
superior,
such as
dreaming,
art,
and
theology,
relentlessly
depreciate
the
everyday, accommodating only
those
transcendent
values
in which hu-
mans
encounter
their
essential
being.
In
order to
achieve
purity, thought
places
itself
apart
from the
here and now
by
means of an
epoche.
At this
stage,
argues
Lefebvre,
everyday
life is an
invisible
residue,
devoid of
truth and
beyond
the
grasp
of
thought
and
language.
Yet it is
precisely
the
specialized
workings
of
the
spirit
that
provoke,
8. For
a
comprehensive
bibliography
including
works
in
English,
see
Shields
[190-204].
9. On
Lefebvre
's
early
years
(the
Revue
marxiste and the
Philosophies
group),
see Burkhard.
The
first
article to invoke the
idea
of
a
critique
of
everyday life
was
Lefebvre
and Guterman's
1933 La
mystification:
Notes
pour
une
critique
de la vie
quotidienne,
published
in L'Avant-
poste.
10.
Volume one
of
Critique
de
la
vie
quotidienne,
released
in
1947
by
Grasset to limited
acclaim,
was reedited in 1958
by
LArche with a
long
introduction
by
Lefebvre;
a second
volume,
informed
by cybernetics,
linguistics,
and
rhythmanalysis,
followed
in 1962.
Lefebvre
met with
renewedpopularity
in
1967 with the
Gallimard
essay
La vie
quotidienne
dans
le
monde moderne.
A
third and
final
volume
of
Critique
de la vie
quotidienne,
De la modernite
au
modernisme,
appeared
in 1981 with
LArche.
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through
dialectical
reversal,
a
second definition
of
everyday
life. When one
subtracts
from
the
totality
of
human
experience
those abstract
activities
that seek
transcendence
(religion,
philosophy,
art),
a
kind of
enormous,
shapeless,
ill-defined
mass
remains
[CVQ
1
252].
If
one measures
the
cumulative effects of
abstraction
against
the
sheer
volume
of this
multiform,
neglected
human raw
material
(matiere
humaine),
the situ-
ation
inverts itself:
The
day
dawns when
everyday
life also
emerges
as a
critique,
a
critique
of the
superior
activities
in
question (and
of what
they produce: ideologies).
The
devaluation of
everyday
life
by
ideologies
appears
as
one-sided
and
partial,
in
both
senses of the
word.
A
direct
critique
takes
the
place
of
indirect
criticism;
and
this direct
critique
involves a
rehabilitation of
everyday
life,
shedding
new
light
on
its
positive
content
[87].
From
this
point
on,
the existence
of
a
signifying
residue
adduces
not
the
inauthenticity
of
everyday
life
but
the
inability
of
specialized
disciplines
to account
for
human
existence
in its
totality.
This
second,
negative
critique
has
important
episte?
mological
consequences,
for the
apparently
inauthentic
remainder
is
given
to
appear
as
the
common denominator
which alone
unites all forms
of intellection.
In
other
words,
the
parcellary
sciences
rely
in fact
on
a
reality
which
they
reject
in
principle;
each
denies
the foundations of its
legitimacy.
The
materialist dialectician will
avenge
the
systematic
devalorization
of
the
quo-
tidian
by
turning
residual
human raw
material
into his
privileged
object.
Lefebvre's
notion of
matiere humaine
has little
to
do
with the
everyday
life
of historians.
If he
takes
French
historians
to
task
for
embellishing
their
explanations
with
painstakingly
detailed
and often
repellently
trivial
descriptions
of
everyday
life at
a
given
period,
it
is
because
these
descriptions
have no relation
whatsoever
with the idea
we
are
likely
to
develop
of
a
knowledge
of
everyday
life.
They only appear
to do
so;
and
they
are
merely
a mask
for whimsical
interpretations
of
history
[133].
Descriptive
realism
proves
little,
save the
belle-lettristic
skill
of the
stylist.
But no more could
the stakes of
the
everyday
lie in the
tidy ordering
of
the
past
through
data collection:
such reconstructions
serve
only
to obfuscate the true
objective
of
thought,
that
is,
in
Lefebvre's
view,
to
analyze
the
breadth and
magnificence
of
the
present
possibilities
which
are
opening
out
for
man
[229]
in
view of
a
far-reaching
transformation
of the
social
world.
Lefebvre's
rejection
of
empiricism
in
favor
of
dialectics
brings
with
it the convic-
tion that
historical
realities
are
bound
up
in
the
perceiving
consciousness
of
individuals.
On
the
one
hand,
the
everyday
designates
the most
alienating aspects
of life:
the
repeti-
tive
nature of
work
and
the
fatigue
that
results from
it,
the
burdens of
commuting
and
housework,
ideological
and sexual
oppression
in
private
and
in
public.
But the
every?
day
also
harbors
the
utopian
idea that
collective
praxis
can transform
relations
in a
lasting
fashion. The fact
remains,
laments
Lefebvre,
that most
inhabitants
ofthe
modern
age
''do
not know their
own lives
very
well,
or know
them
inadequately
[94].
The thrust
of his
Critique
is thus
perhaps
best
encapsulated
by Hegel's
dictum on
the
becoming
of
consciousness:
Was
ist
bekannt ist nicht
erkannt
( The
familiar
is not
necessarily
the
known )
[qtd.
in
Lefebvre
132].
This
error
underwrites
Lefebvre's
plea
to
recognize
the
everyday
as a reservoir
full
of human
content,
to
demystify
the social
mystery
[224]
of the
everyday,
and to
adapt sociological
analysis
so
as
to
allow for
the elucidation of
apparently
mundane
facts. Yet
it
is
never
enough
merely
to describe
individual
prac?
tices,
such
as the
weekly purchase
of
sugar
at a
dry
goods
shop
or
the
reading
of
women's
magazines;
more
important
is
the task
of
teasing
out
the
social
contradictions
these
ordinary
practices bring
to bear. This second
charge
is
made
difficult
by
the
media,
which
gloss
over social divisions and reduce
everyday
life to an individual
quest
for
material
well-being.
Only
a lucid
understanding
of
individual
situations
in
relation to
the social
totality
can
combat this
debilitating
form of
modern
collective
amnesia.
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In
spite
of its
marxian
roots,
Lefebvre's
program
for
a
transformed,
disalienated
everyday
sets itself
apart
from traditional
revolutionary politics.
The heterodox
Marxist
takes it
upon
himself
lucidly
to recreate
everyday
life
[227]
outside
of
rigid
party
hierarchies and
free from the strictures
of
revolutionary
discipline.
Conceived as
an
open,
evolving
humanism,
Lefebvre's
project
is a collective
one,
to
be realized in the
field
through
interviews and
dialogues.
Asking
simple
questions
about
life as it is lived
is
an
indispensable step in increasing collective awareness of
the causes of alienation
in
everyday
life: of
the
observed,
the
sociologist
must make
self-critical observers. At
the
end of
the
day,
Lefebvre
would
fix his
hopes
not on
the
coming
of
a classless
society,
but
rather?and
this is
perhaps
an even more ambitious
project?on
the transforma-
tion of
life in its
smallest,
most
everyday
detail
[226].
Man
must be
everyday,
or
he
will
not
be at
all
[127],
he
proclaims,
echoing
the
Surrealists
whom he lambasts for
subordinating
praxis
to
onirism,
the real
to
the unreal.
Indeed,
Aragon's
marvelous
quotidian
and
Breton's
found
objects
stumbled across
during
the
vagaries
of a
night-
time walk
hold
only
false
promises.
Modern
man cannot
content
himself with such
cheap
and
contaminated
substitute(s)
for
mystery
[122].
Against
such
hopes
of
meta-
physical transcendence,
he must
accept
the
workaday
world
as the sole locus of durable
transformation.
Following
Marx's
injunction
from the
Theses
on
Feuerbach,
he
must
move
from
interpretation
to
action,
seeking
out conditions
in
which total
man can live
out the
collective human
drama to the fullest.
The
combative
rhetoric of Lefebvre's
first
Critique
owes
much to
Lenin and
to
the
Lukacs of
History
and
Class
Consciousness,
not to
mention
the
optimism
that infused
French
Communist
milieus
after
the Liberation. For
all
its
militancy
however,
Critique
de
la vie
quotidienne
is
also
the
work of
a
practicing
sociologist
who
foresees
the need
for vast
field
studies:
A
trivial
day
in
our lives?what do
we make of it?
[196]
This
pivotal
question
only points
to others: Where should
one seek
out
everyday
life? How
might
it
best
be
observed?
If
empirical
study
of
the
everyday
is
problematic,
it
is
be?
cause
the
everyday
resides for Lefebvre in neither
work,
leisure,
nor
private
life,
but
in
the
totality
of social
interactions.
It remains the case
that some
groups
experience
the
constraints
of
everydayness
at
higher
cost than do others:
alienation
is
greater
for women
and
for the
working
class
than for the
bourgeois
male,
who
is able to
make
room
for
self-cultivation and to
escape
from routine
productive
activity.
In advanced industrial
society,
everydayness
is
thus
quasi-synonymous
with
assembly-line
work,
substandard
living
accommodations,
and
the
obligatory
use of
public
transport.
And here lies the
key
intuition
that
separates
Lefebvre from historians of
Braudel's
stamp:
it is
useless,
he
argues,
to look to the
countryside
for
a
model
of
everyday
life.
In
the
1950s,
the
legend-
ary styles
of life
whose
diversity
had
seduced
observers of
rural
society
into a
collect-
ing frenzy
had
begun
to
collapse
under the
weight
of
a
model
of
everydayness
based on
the life
of
city
dwellers.
In
the
second volume
of
the
Critique,
1962's
Fondements
d'une
sociologie
de
la
quotidiennete,
the
effects
of
the
economic
boom
in France
are
everywhere apparent.
To
be
sure,
the
widespread misery
of the immediate
postwar
has
not
altogether disappeared,
notes
Lefebvre;
the
everyday
has not been
absorbed
by
culture,
history,
politics,
or
technology.
It
is rather the
orientation
of the
concept
which
has
changed
with standard-
ization,
planned
obsolescence,
and the
progressive
erasure
of
class differences
through
the
creation
of
factitious
needs. As
fewer and fewer workers
need
concern themselves
with
the
struggle
for
daily
bread,
they
too
begin
to
voice their
rights
to material
enjoy-
ment of
capitalism's gains.
Modernization of
everyday
life
only
exacerbates the
waning
of local
particularisms
that
once
gave popular
urban
districts
of
France their ethno-
graphic
depth:
Our
everyday
life,
writes
Lefebvre,
no
longer
has
any style
[CVQ
2
321;
trans.
modified].
The
new towns
of
government
tract
housing
or
grands
ensembles
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present
a limit case in
this
tendency
toward
homogeneity,
for
such inventions conceived
on
the
architect's
drawing
board and built
to
standard
specifications
rob the
community
of its
basic
spontaneity
[78].
If
between
the wars
Le
Corbusier
praised
the serial
poetry
of
these
machines
for
living,
Lefebvre
sees in them
a
class
conspiracy
which
aims
to
reprivatize
existence
by reducing
it to
the
merely
functional. To combat
the
reduction ofthe
lived
to
the
conceived,
he maintains
that
the
everyday
must
every-
where
be
apprehended
as a
total human
phenomenon [96],
a collective work
(ceuvre)
whose
dynamics
are
foreign
to the
logic
ofthe
assembly-line
product
(produit).
The time that
transpired
between first
(1947)
and
second
(1962)
volumes of Cri?
tique
of
Everyday
Life
was
characterized
by
an
unprecedented
degree
of
top-down
inter-
vention
in the lived
environment.
Whereas
Lefebvre's
Critique
of
the
immediate
post-
war
was wedded
to
working-class
liberation and consciousness
raising,
it would
present
itself
in the
1960s as
a
tactic,
following
Clausewitz's
distinction,
a
set
of
ruses
or
feints
placed
in
opposition
to
strategies
of
state control
[CVQ
2
135].
Changes wrought
in
France
by
technical
progress
were such
that for the author
of
Everyday
Life
in
the
Modern
World
(1967),
even the
most resourceful of
citizens
has
difficulty
in
finding
a
space
for
practice
not
yet
formalized
expressly by neocapitalist rationality.
All
that
ap-
pears
to remain of
the
quotidian
is
the
objective
side
of
the
conceptual
coin:
In the
modern
world
everyday
life
(le
quotidien)
has ceased to
be a
'subject'
rich
in
potential
subjectivity;
it
has
become
an
'object'
of social
organization
[EL 59-60].
Monopoly
capitalism,
no less
so than
socialist
bureaucracy,
forcibly programs
the
everyday
by
parceling
it
out
into
rationally
managed
subsystems.
The
productivist/consumerist
logic
governing
these
subsystems
creates
a closed
loop
that
imprisons
the
everyday;
use
val-
ues
are
endlessly
converted into
exchange
values,
works
into
products.
In this
ideologi-
cal
landscape,
Marxist humanism
loses its traditional
ally,
the
working
class.
Waning
in
number
and
in
political
force,
the
latter
withdraws
from
its
fabled historical mission
qua
revolutionary proletariat
and
mimics the middle
class,
which
itself lives
off
the
crumbs
ofthe
rich
[93;
trans.
mod.].
Only
a naive
populist,
admits
Lefebvre,
could
any longer
expect
the
study
of
working-class
milieus to withhold
some
hidden
truth
of
everyday
life.
As
the
world
continues its ineluctable march toward
the
perfection
of
the
system,
even
revolutionary praxis
comes to resemble
programming
put together by
some
punc-
tilious
bureaucrat:
the
revolution
betrayed
our
hopes
and
became
part
of
everyday
life
(quotidiennete),
an
institution,
a
bureaucracy
[37].
It would
seem
indeed,
on
both
sides
ofthe
Iron
Curtain,
that
managers
and administrators
had taken
careful note of Lefebvre's
theories,
precisely
so as to refashion
the
everyday
as
a
space
of total domination:
Ev?
eryday
life,
he
writes,
is no
longer
the
dispossessed,
the
common
ground
of
special-
ized
activities,
the
no-man's-land
[113].
It
now
lay
at the
very
forefront
of
political
discourse and
became the
target
of a
neocolonization
that Lefebvre considers
a com-
pensatory
formation
to colonial
troubles at
the turn
of
the 1960s.
Yet
if
collusion
be?
tween
state
and
private
interests
had
vanquished
daily
life
in
France as
it
was
lived,
it
did
not
entail
the
defeat of the
everyday
as
a
transformative
concept.
In
fact,
Lefebvre
considers
conditions all the
more
ripe
for
change
for
the
fact
that
new
living
conditions
and
labor
rhythms
engender
undeniable
feelings
of boredom.
To
escape
the
monotony
of
modern
society,
says
Lefebvre,
one must
bring
about
the
conquest
of
the
everyday
through
a
series of
actions?investments, assaults,
transformations
[73;
trans.
mod.].
The
everyday
becomes a
springboard
for collective
revolt
and
a
touchstone
for
rights
to
sexual
appropriation,
a
right
to
the
city
(le
droit
a
la
ville),
and
a
right
to
urban festival.
This
program
may
no
longer
aim at total
man,
but
by regenerating
styles
of life it
does
intend to
prevent
the inhabitant
of directed
consumer
society
from
becoming
homo
quotidianus
tout
court.
diacritics /
spring
2003
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May
1968
marks both a
culmination
and a
turning point
in Lefebvre's
Critique.
In
Uirruption
de
Nanterre au
sommet
(1968),
he
would
describe those
five
historic
weeks
as
a
suspension
of the
everyday,
only
to note
that the breach in
state
power opened
by
the
student-worker revolt was
all
too
quick
to
mend.
The
Mouvement
de Mai
degen-
erated
into a
game
of sectarian
politics
before it could
secure
many lasting
gains;
in-
stead
of
changing
everyday
life,
student leaders had
thought only
of
changing power,
playing into the hands of the advanced industrial state. Transforming the everyday
requires
certain
conditions.
A
break with the
everyday by
means of
festival?violent or
peaceful?cannot
endure,
wrote Lefebvre on the effects of
recuperation
[ The
Every?
day
11].
And
it
is
precisely
the
uncanny adaptability
of
the
capitalist
system
that would
mark
the
evolution of
the
concept
during
the
1970s,
summarized
in the third
volume
of
Critique
de la vie
quotidienne,
De
la modernite au modernisme
(1981).
Increased
ho-
mogenization,
the
fragmentation
of
time,
space,
and
work,
and the
emergence
of strict
functional
hierarchies
continue
to
impoverish
the
everyday
at the
end
of
the trente
glorieuses.
No
longer, argues
Lefebvre,
does
daily
life contain hidden
riches
[19]
under its
apparent poverty;
no
longer
does
it
present
itself as the
point
of
departure
for
action
[22].
The
everyday
is
indeed
nothing more, nothing
less than a
norm associated
with
middle-class
living.
This
emergence
of a normative
everyday
existence
has insidi-
ous
effects
on
civic
action,
for
just
as
private companies promote
consumer
identity
at
the
expense
of
citizenship,
so too the state
replaces
the citizen
with the
user,
a
figure
emptied
of
political
content
[80].
Yet,
remarks
Lefebvre,
the state's hold
upon
the
social
body
is all the more
fragile
for the fact that it
only conveys
itself
to
the citizens
in and
by
its
intervention
in
the
everyday.
The colonization of
the
everyday begun
in the
1960s
has
been
so effective that the
French
state,
which
formerly
took
the
forces
of
production
as
its
base,
now
finds that
base in
the
everyday
itself.
Most
citizens,
oblivious
to this
fact,
continue to believe
nai'vely
in the
monumental
ideals and
symbols
of state
power
placed
above
their
heads
[123].
Lefebvre's criticism is
that if the state
is able
fully
to
dominate the
everyday,
it is in
large
part
because users
let themselves
be dominated
within
it,
accepting
with
the
gratitude
of
good
citizens those
small
perks
given
to
them.
Would not the true
sign
of the
end of
ideology,
and
perhaps
also
the
end
of
history,
come from
the fact that the
everyday
is the
only thing
left that counts?
Given
Lefebvre's
1981
diagnosis
of
French
modernization,
it is
hardly surprising
that he
again
reconsid-
ered the
value
of
his
philosophical
critique,
this time
by comparing
the
plight
of
the
quotidian
to the
return
of
tragic
sentiment:
Nothing
dies in the
everyday.
When
someone
disappears
we
say: uLife
goes
on
...
Things
must
go
on,
family,
the
workshop
and the
business,
the
office,
society
in its
entirety.
[.
..]
It
may
occur to
us,
however,
that
if
nothing
dies in
the
everyday
it is
because
in
daily life everything
is
already
dead: a
repetitive
existence buried
under its
own
repetition,
both
unfamiliar
and too well
known,
hidden under
the tired
rhetoric
ofbanalized
discourse.
Is there
everyday
life?
or
everyday
death?
[67]
Y
a-t-il
une vie
quotidienne?ou
une mort
quotidienne?
A term which
once
desig-
nated a
human
matter rich in
possibilities
would now announce
the decline
of a civi-
lization,
its
style
and its
values
[43].
What
is
admirable
in
Lefebvre's
analysis
is
that
at
the
very
moment
when
a fall
into undifferentiated neo-barbarism
[44]
seemed
pos?
sible,
if
not
imminent,
he still
insisted
upon making
the
everyday
the crux
of
his
thought
[163].
The
quotidian
was a
risk he
could not afford not to
take,
and the
metamorphoses
of
this
concept through
history
were
perhaps
the best
proof
of
the
vitality
of
the will-
fully
interminable
project
that was
Critique
de la
vie
quotidienne.
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Surveillance
and
Invention: Michel de Certeau
If
Lefebvre's
insistence
on
consciousness and
the dialectic
removed the
quotidian
from
the
historian's
sphere
of
statistical
description,
Michel
de Certeau's
work
in
anthropol-
ogy
and
microsociology
would
challenge
in turn those
assumptions
made
by
his Marx-
ist
predecessor
Lefebvre. The
theoretical and
empirical
portions
of The Practice
of
Ev?
eryday Life, published
in
two volumes
in
1980
under
the
title Uinvention du
quotidien,
confirmed in
spectacular
fashion Lefebvre's idea
that
study
of
the
everyday
could
not
derive from a
single
discipline
or
method. The theoretical
part
of
Certeau's
project,11
which
drew
much
of
its
tone from
his
pamphlet
on
the
symbolic
revolution of
May
'68,
Laprise
deparole,
was
to
give interdisciplinarity
a new
face: the
book
was
a
patch-
work made in
the
image
of
its
creator,
an
ordained
brother
ofthe
Compagnie
de
Jesus,
a
founding
member of
the Ecole
freudienne,
and a
university
researcher active on
three
continents.
Bringing together
the art of war
(Clausewitz)
and
the art of
memory
(Yates),
the
barbarian's
ruse
(Vernant
et
Detienne)
and
the
anthropology
of
practice
(Bourdieu),
rhetoric,
semiotics,
and
discourse
analysis,
modal
logic
and
Wittgensteinian philoso?
phy,
Certeau
warned
his readers
from
the
outset
against inferring
a
single
directive
or
unified
theory
from
the results
presented.
What
was of
importance
was less
the
book
itself,
which
Certeau
considered
deliberately
unfinished,
than the
timely
creation
of
research
groups
that
could set
off
into the
field
with a
refurbished
kit of
tools
and
a new
attitude
to
go
with
them.
Like
Blanchot,
Certeau
voiced
his wish
to
penetrate
what Lukacs
famously
called
the
anarchy
ofthe
chiaroscuro
ofthe
everyday
[qtd.
in Practice
199].
Yet
unlike
his
predecessors,
he
was
under no
obligation
to discover
the
everyday.
When he
undertook
his
research in
the
early
1970s,
the
epistemic legitimacy
of
everyday practices
was
well-nigh
assured;
anthropology
in both its
traditional
and
its reflexive
(urban
or
rural)
guise gave
the
study
of
villages,
the
pedestrian
uses of
the
city
street,
reading,
or
the
preparation
of
food a
new-found
visibility.
It is
indicative
of
Certeau's
free-thinking
spirit
that
Lefebvre,
who
completed
his
final volume of
Critique
de la vie
quotidienne
just
after
Vinvention du
quotidien
was
released,
should
appear
in the latter as one
refer-
ence
among
others.12
Rather than invent a
concept
of
the
everyday,
then,
Certeau
at-
tempts
to
demonstrate the
invention
that
everyday
life
reveals.
Why
indeed,
he
asks,
should
we
rehearse
the
alienating aspects
of social
life
if
we
cannot
at
the
same time
complement
those
qualities
with a
positive
vision of
ordinary
human
activity?
Certeau's
appeal
to
compassion
for the common man
and
woman
exposes
the
religious underpin-
nings
of
his
thought:
researchers must
abandon
the elitist
prejudices
of scientism
and
begin
to
believe in
the thousand
ways
in which
individuals
escape
each and
every day
from the
strictures of
technical
rationality. Ordinary
actions should
be
reconsidered
in
light
of their
inventiveness,
that
is,
the
capacity
for
engendering
fresh
styles
of
life
within
the
interstices
of state and class
control.
This
theme of
the resistance
of
the
lived
to the
conceived,
clearly
present
in
Lefebvre's
work,
is the
thread that will
permit
Certeau
to find
his
way
through
the
labyrinthine
forms of
everyday
life.
The
Practice
of
Everyday Life
is
explicitly
dedicated to
chacun
(everyone
or
everyman
[1-2]),
a
character who
appears
as
mute and
marginal,
outside of
history,
but
also
numerically
superior.
If
Certeau's
Everyone
is an
updated
version
ofthe
antihe-
11. The
empirical
portion, Living
and
Cooking,
summarizes research conducted
by
Pierre
Mayol
in the
Lyons
Croix-Rousse
neighborhood
and
by
Luce Giard
on
homemaking.
12. In
a
note,
Certeau states
flatly,
without
providing
references,
that
the works
ofHenri
Lefebvre
on
everyday
life
constitute
afundamental
source
[205n5],
It
goes
without
saying
that
the
Marxist
philosopher
suffers
here a
sharp
rebuff.
diacritics
/
spring
2003
35
-
8/11/2019 Desafio Histria No Ps-guerra
15/19
roes
of
humanist
theater,
Nobody,
Nemo,
and
Niemand,
in
the
present
day
he
possesses
another
name,
often
the
object
of bad
press:
the consumer.
For
Certeau,
the
commonly
held view of
the
consumer
as a
dupe
to the
system,
living
life
as
if
by
following
a user's
manual,
is but a
fiction.
Whoever takes to
the
field
to observe
everyday practices,
he
argues,
knows
by
what
millenary
ruses
individuals
free themselves
from the
proto-
cols
imposed upon
them,
making
the most of
their dominated
position.
The researcher's
task is to take note of such statistically unpredictable deviations from the norm. Graft-
ing
his
work on
Foucault's
analysis
in
Discipline
andPunish of
the
microtechnologies
of
power
that
encourage
self-regulation
of social
bodies,
Certeau
insists
that however
advanced these
technologies
might
be,
subjects
will
always enjoy
room for maneuver.
If
it
is true that
the
grid
of
'discipline'
is
everywhere
becoming
clearer
and more
exten-
sive,
he
writes,
it is all the
more
urgent
to
discover
how
an entire
society
resists
being
reduced to it
[xiv].
The
element
of
unpredictability
that is
part
and
parcel
of
basic
activities
such
as
walking,
reading,
or
cooking
remains
invisible
to
state
apparatuses
of
control,
which
simply
cannot
afford to
concern
themselves
with the
microsocial. Mov-
ing through
the
interstices of
power,
Certeau's
ordinary
folk
play
their
weaknesses off
those who
dominate
them; they pit temporally
based
tactics
against
the
place-cen-
tered
strategies
of
t