Michel de Certeau and the practice of representation

This is an electronic version of an article published in Cultural Studies. © Copyright 1991 Taylor & Francis; Cultural Studies is available online at http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/09502386.aspMichel de Certeau’s work, particularly the ethnography of everyday practices developed Arts de faire I and II, has been extensively appropriated in recent years by English-speaking theorists of popular culture. The appropriation has been rather selective, ignoring much of de Certeau’s output in, for example, sociology, history, and literary criticism. More to my point, it has taken from de Certeau a model of the popular which is at once powerful and simple, and which I therefore propose to treat in this paper both with respect and theoretical caution